


Sensation

by LittleGreenPlasticSoldier



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Agoraphobia, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Bathing/Washing, Blindness, Claustrophobia, Cursed Sam, Curses, Deaf, Deaf Sam, Disassociation, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Feeling Trapped, Feelings of, Fellatio, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Hair Washing, Helpless Sam, Listing the following for possible TWs, Massage, Meta, Nightmares, Oral Sex, Originally Posted on Tumblr, POV Sam Winchester, Panic Attacks, Philosophy, Reader-Insert, Sam has Nightmares, Sex, Sexual Content, Temporarily Blind, Temporary Blindness, Tumblr Prompt, loss of senses, scruff stuff, temporarily Deaf, tough love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-10-28 00:31:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10819959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleGreenPlasticSoldier/pseuds/LittleGreenPlasticSoldier
Summary: Sam is cursed to live without his senses - sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste - and you are left to look after him at the bunker.  It turns out you are both quite resourceful..For @jaredpadasexyy’s #JaredPadasexyyEaster challenge.   Written in Sam's voice.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s probably nothing.  At least it’s more likely going to be nothing than be something, so I’ll sit on it till I’ve got a reason to say anything.

“What are you frowning about Frowny Face?” Dean’s grinning, ready to celebrate already.  “We got the witch, Sammy! We ganked the bitch!”  Wow, that is a good mood.  “Let’s go get some hot crossed buns and have a drink.  You keen Y/N?”

“Sure.  I could go for something cinnamonny.”  She’s good that way, rolls along with Dean’s moods.  She knows how to talk to him, way better than I am at buttering up his ego.  I should be less of an ass and let her have the front seat more often.  But…  Yeah, I’m probably too selfish for that.  Or sensible really; that’s just be buying myself some grief.

“Why do you keep wiping your nose?” Dean asks me.

“I didn’t realise I was.  It’s uh… It’s cold.”  I think it’s cold.

“Don’t go gettin’ sick on us man, I can’t stand seeing you sweat all over the place and drag your ass from bed to bath.”  Thanks Brother, your empathy is overwhelming.  He makes a retching face and I’m saying nothing because A. he’s in such a good mood, and B. I’m not giving that image more time in Y/N’s head.  So frikken gross.

My nose does feel weird.  

This is the middle ground, like the T-minus countdown before I say something, and I can feel it in my body.  The What Ifs and Maybe’s, and the facts I actually have.  My brain does background calculations of risk versus consequences, likelihood versus fallout.  I pretend to myself that I’m not listing things, right up until I hit that threshold where the odds tip me past hesitation.  

We’ve got 20mins before we get to the bunker.  It’s been an hour since she touched me.  Dammit.  All of me knows something’s going on.

“Uh, guys?”  I hate giving news like this; I push down the feeling of being a chump and focus on responsibility.  “I think something’s wrong.  With me.”

“What?” Dean glances over, looks up and down trying to see while he drives.

Y/N leans forward with a hand on on the seat.  “Like what?  What sort of thing?”

“I think,” Shit I have to remember this now.  “I think the witch hit me with something.”

“What is it?” Dean pushes the car faster, focuses on driving home.

“So, she recognised me.”  I put my arm over the seat so I can talk to both of them properly.  “Went on about me thinking I’m great and all, Sam Winchester who thinks he’s too good to die-”

“You are too good to die,” Dean quips.

Y/N raises an eyebrow, saying, “Funny coz it’s true.”

“Well, thanks guys, but she seemed less than impressed.  Said I didn’t even know what it was really like to be dead.  Said I should know how it feels.”  Bitch didn’t know me as well as she thought.

Y/N’s hiding it well but I can see her colour fade a tone.  “What did she do?”

“She tapped my nose,” I say and Y/N twitches her head, not even an inch, and she’s just thought _Fuck_.

“How the fuck was she close enough to tap your nose?!” And there’s the obligatory Dad reaction from Dean.  Not important, Ass.  

“Because I was _trying_ to kill her and you had the witch-killing bullets!”

“Okay-okay, so what do you think she’s done to you?” Dean demands.  “Coz she’s dead and burned Sammy! We ain't’ diggin’ up no bones for a Q and A!”

Getting angry at Dean tends to slip into panic, and I’m trying not to panic here.  All of us are.  She talked about death, the feeling of death.  But I’m not dead.  I’m pretty sure I’m not dead.  “She said, ‘Try that for a while’.  So, I guess, it’s not going to be permanent?”

“You _guess?”_ Dean’s nearly shouting now.  

Thank fuck for Y/N because any time he flips out she’s as steady as a boat.  She puts her hand on his arm, asking me “Did she say anything else?  Do anything?”

“She uh, she tapped my nose, a few times. Several.  I think.”  Yeah, it’s curious.  It’s likely something, and I can see her thinking about it all.

“How do you feel right now?” she asks.

“Fine! Really, other than my nose, I feel fine.”  There’s that _I might be an idiot_ whisper in my head, but my _gut,_ my gut knows.

“So why do you feel like something’s wrong?”  She’s always so damn diplomatic.

“Because it’s not cold, it’s numb.  And it’s creeping across my skin.”

Her eyes lock onto the spot, and I know there’s nothing to see, but it’s still comforting to have her here, worrying about me.  Not about me, but, you know.  The job.

“Fuck.  You keep us posted,” Dean orders.  “Anything changes, you tell us.  If it stops, you tell us.”

“Got it.”

“Hopefully it’ll be a temporary thing.”

The rest of the drive is in silence, and I spend however many minutes trying not to touch my nose but dammit that’s a hard instinct to ignore.  After a while I’m touching it to just map the numbness.  I spend the rest of the time trying to stay calm and think of foods I won’t miss smelling.  I mean, it’s just my nose, hardly death-like, after nearly two hours.

In the garage, Dean’s rushing, Y/N’s out of the car quick too but I don’t know what to tell them.  It seems so benign now. “It’s okay guys, it’s pretty much the same.”

“What’s pretty much?” she asks.

“It’s a bit bigger,” I admit.  “It’s…” I touch it one more time to be sure… “I can’t feel my nostrils.  Half the bone.”

“So it’s growing,” she says.  I know she’s not angry at me, but she sounds urgent.

“Yeah. Seems so.”

“Fuck.  Come on.”  She’s off into the bunker, Dean and I wondering if she knows something we don’t.  “Go to the bathroom.  Change into your sweats, okay?  Eat something hearty-”

“Wait, why am I doing this?” I tug on her arm, asking her to stop this march to, I dunno, the library I figure.  “What do you think’s going on?”

“You know what?”  She stops and takes a breath, turning to me. “I don’t wanna scare you.  I might be wrong, but, just in case, eat as much as you can, okay?  Can you do me that favour?”

“Uh, sure.”  I can’t even tell if I’m indulging her.  Dean thinks I arrange the cutlery and ‘fancy up’ the library catalogues for her.  Whatever it is, I can’t tell I’m doing it and she doesn’t seem to notice especially.  I mean, I would do just about anything she asks, she just never asks for anything stupid.  But this is odd.

Thankfully Dean isn’t doing his _You’re so whipped_ face, so it’s easy to go along. “I’ll do that, get some PB &J into me, bananas, whatever.”

“Okay.” She smiles and I feel like I’ve gotten something right.  Ugh, so needy.  Then she strides away, Dean patting my shoulder before he follows her.

And I follow orders.  Sweats, bathroom, food, drink, more food.  It’s about the time I’m downing a protein shake (since, okay, who am I kidding, I’m bent on getting straight A’s from Y/N) that I notice I can’t really feel my upper lip.  Just the middle, really.  Like a bee sting.  I finish up and get myself to the library.

“How you doing?” She’s got books open to pictures of the crucifixion.  I’d say it’s ‘cause of Easter but that’s probably not it.

“I’m okay.  I uh.  My lip,” I wave a finger around where I mean.

“It’s numb too?” she guesses.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, sit here.”  She pulls out a chair for me while Dean’s pulling ingredients together near a duffel.

It’s like there’s a parasite on my face I don’t know about, and I’m rubbing my palms up and down my thighs when I realise Y/N’s face… she’s scared.  That’s her _Let’s get these people to safety_ face.  Fuck.  Fuck it.

“Okay, so um… “ She’s squatting in front of me like I’m a kid in the doctor’s office, looking around for something.  “Dean, is any of that stuff stinky?”

“No, not especially,” he says.  Doesn’t even flinch at such a strange question.

“Okay, smell this,” she says and- what? - pulls her collar aside, tilting her head to show me her neck.

“What?!  Smell you?”  Is it really me who’s been cursed?  

“I’m wearing perfume, right here.” She taps just below her earlobe.  “Can you smell it?”

Jesus.  Thank God Dean’s off in some dark corner.  I can’t deal with him being a dick about this right now.  And I’m totally focused on this incidental and quick task but damn.  That’s a snapshot; lips to hairline, lobe to collar bone- I concentrate on not pausing, leaning in, right up, and sniff, bump my nose into her skin because I can’t detect anything with it, but I feel the squish.  That’s odd.  “No.  I can’t.  I can’t smell you either.”

“How did the food taste?”

Oh shit.  “Dull.”

Y/N lets her collar go and pulls a chair up in front of me.  “Sam, I think the ‘several taps’ was strange.  And she said ‘See how that feels’, right?  I think it was probably closer to five taps, for the five senses.”

That’s all she says.  Dammit, that’s all she needs to say.  I’ve lost my sense of smell, my lip’s completely numb now, and I can feel it creeping into my mouth and cheeks…

“So, I’ve said this to Dean already, but this is what I’ve got.  Hey, I’m here-”

She puts a hand on mine because, I know, I must look pretty grim right now.  All five senses.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she assures me.  “One of us will be here the whole time.  With you.”

This is what she does.  She goes to the end.  All the way to the end point of what’s going on and prepares.  When she started with us, she seemed like the nicest, deadliest doomsdayer I’d ever met.  She didn’t overreact - nothing’s an overreaction in our field - but seriously, it feels like she gets to every conclusion just before I do.  Makes me feel a bit dense, to be honest.

“Okay?”  She’s waited for me to catch up, be ready to listen, and nod to let her know to go on.  “I think it’s sweeping over you.  I don’t know if taste or sight will go next but I’m going to assume both before hearing.  I’m not too worried about taste except to tell you that it’ll be soup for breakfast, lunch and dinner till this passes, with a straw.”

“Right.”  I can stay calm.  I can still focus.

“And without hearing, we’ll still have your hands for a while after that.”

Yes, of course, down my arms.

“So I want to set up some protocols in case you can’t feel your voice enough to use it.”

Holy shit.  I might even go off the grid completely.

She’s still holding my hand, and takes it to her mouth, puts my fingers on her lips and pushes my thumb to her throat.  “Remember the Hellen Keller clip we saw?”

“Yeah.” I’m blinking at my fingers on her lips, its… it’s intimate.  

“Can you feel my voice?  Some consonants?”

I need to get my shit together. “Yeah, I can feel that.”  I don’t know what I can make of it though.

“Close your eyes and feel it… I don’t know how your vision might fade, so let’s keep doing this so you’re comfortable with it. I’m going to give you some key words, okay?”

“How have you thought of all this?”

“I’m making it up as I go.”  She’s talking quickly, and it’s winding me up.  “Food.”  Okay, so, tight wind on her lips, the bump at the end.  “Food.”  I close my eyes and she says again “Food.”  The bone of my nose seems missing.  “Dean,” she says, “in case I have to leave.”

“You’re going to stay with me?”  Of course she is.   That’s a stupid question.  Someone will.

“The whole time, okay?”  She squeezes my wrist and smiles.  “I think, I’m hoping, you know with the Jesus reference, that it just lasts the three days at most, till Sunday, midday-ish.”

Right.  Okay, three days.  I can do a few days.  “I feel stupid for not thinking of all this.  I mean, of course you’re-”

“Well, you might be in shock.  So don’t worry about it.”  She chews her lower lip, thinking of what might be important, and I’m starting to lick the roof of my mouth as it disappears to my mind.  “Wiggle your nose?”

“Wha- Oh.” Of course, to see if I can.  Which I kind of can.

“Okay, so, um. Bathroom stuff.”

Yep, straight to the end point.  “Well, you can just say Fuck.”

“Or ‘Awkward!’” she offers.  “Shit!”

“Yeah fuck is way too vague,” Dean says, reappearing with a bag of spell stuff.  “But if I’m here I’ll help with that.  I’m gonna go visit Larry.  He had a wordless spell a few months ago, used a potion to knock it off.  But he’s four hours away, so.”

“Right, yeah, of course.”  Probably should.  “I’ll be okay though, Dean.  If it’s only a few days.”

“Yeah, but what if it’s not?  And what if you’re not okay?  I can hardly stand 6 hours with that brain, myself.  God knows how you cope.”

He’s making a joke, I know.  We all know, but I’m still pretending that it doesn’t hurt my feelings. I know I’ve got a lot of memories in here.  I know they’re not great.  But he pats my shoulder, a good squeeze really, on his way out- Okay.  He wasn’t making a joke.

“Look, um, with all the, uh, faculties,” I begin and the smile she gives me makes the next part seem redundant but I say it anyway so that it’s said.  “We’ve dealt with gross with each other before, right?  You’ve puked, I’ve puked, there was that gastro when we all shared that one bathroom-”

“Probably explains how we all got gastro,” she shrugs.

“Right, well there wasn’t much mystery with that-”

“Just pretend I’m a nurse, right?” she finishes for me.

“That’s what I was gonna say,” I point at her and she smiles again.

Then she says “Anyway, it’s not like I haven’t seen your dick before.” Just throws that out there like birds can fly, and looks at her watch.

Screw the time, when the fuck has she seen my dick? “Sorry, when was that?”  See how relaxed I am?

“I’ll tell you after,” she says, as though that’s not important. “What’s gone now?”

“Uh, upper lip, hard palate, soft palate, and…” Shit.  “Okay my vision’s going, it’s starting to tunnel.”

“Go like this,” she says, pouting her lips.  “I’m not going to kiss you,” she smiles.

“Oh, sad Jesus.”  Trusting my brain will remember all this for when I can’t see.

I pout and she says, “See? You can do that with both lips.  I think you’re going to be able to move yourself.  And if you can move your muscles then you can probably feel them too.  So this?”  She pokes me deep in my belly.  “I’ll use something like that.  Or I’ll move your limbs to show you what I mean.  Oh and two whatever’s for Yes, one for No.”

“Okay.  Thanks.”  I can feel my heart racing, harder than before.  The vision seems to be going too fast, and I can kind of manage my breathing but my heart…

“What’s happening?”

“I can’t see my shoulders.”

“Okay, I’m here.”  She holds my hands and smiles kindly.

“It’s fast.”

“Eyes are small.”

“Mmm.”

She’s watching, letting me look at her as everything disappears.  It’s not darkness; it’s nothing.  Absence.  She puts her palms on my temples and I take a deeper breath, hold her wrists and feel the space, and keep watching.  I wonder if she can tell how it’s going by what I’m looking at, how my eyes look at her shoulders, then her ears…

“I’m right here,” she says, and keeps talking as the last of my sight fades away. “See?  You can feel me here.  You’ll feel me for a while yet and after that you’ll know I’m here somehow.  I’ll squeeze your hand or your knee or something.  And if you feel your body get moved, like maybe I’ll open your mouth so I can feed you?  That’ll be me.”  She’s gone. “I’ll look after you okay?  You’ll be looked after.  The whole time.  I’ll wear an adult diaper.”  Huh.  

Her hands on me are good, grounding.  I squeeze her wrists to feel it more.  Distance is such a perception.

Okay, it’s not as terrible as I thought, but… it is going to get worse.  “Proprio-  Ugh.” Talking is getting hard.  My mouth is fat.  “Proprioception,” I say.  “It’s like a 6th sense.  And it works-”  Fuck.  I feel like my tongue might fall down my throat.  “It works with skin and muscle but it’s how your brain knows where your limbs are, even if it can’t see them.  That might still work.”

“I’m hoping so.  Hey, open up please?”

I feel her thumb on my chin, and I have to think really hard to make it happen, but I do.  

“Say Ah?”

“Aaa-YA! UCK! Okayee.”

“Gag reflex still works.”  She sounds like she’s smiling.

“Thangs.”  Oooooookay.  Okayokayokay.  I’m confident I’m moving my tongue, moving my lips, clenching my jaw, just, trying to feel something where the skin is out.

“You’re doing that,” she says.  “It’s all moving still.”

“Mmm.”  Okay, I officially do not like this.  “My ears.”

“Going?”

“Yeah.”  

She gets a proper hold on my hands. “Feel scary?”

“A little.”

“I’m right here Sam, I gotcha.”  

Shit, you know how you’re okay till someone asks you if you’re okay? It’s just a drum, the tiniest thing, but when that goes, no more hearing.  Y/N’s saying it over and over, she’ll be here, she’ll look after me, it’s okay, and it’s comforting but seriously, I’m going under into nothing.  Apple-bobbing.  Lungs going up and down on air from nowhere.  Still breathing.  Nothing.

Fuck.  Okay.  People go through this.  People are blind and deaf and they’re okay.  They’re happy, I’m being a sad little shit for not coping with this.  I can still feel my hands.

I put my thumb and fingers up to her mouth and throat again, poke her in the nose to do it, and breath a little easier, feeling her hold me there. I can feel her say my name.  I can feel a breath before a tongue-thing.  Maybe _Okay? You’re good?_ “Okay?”  Two taps for yes. The corner of her mouth curves under my little finger and I remember how they look, how she looked at me.  Okay.

With my other hand I start dragging my fingers down my chin and throat, marking the line of submersion, and the contrast is striking with a few days of growth to scratch with my nails.  It’s slowly moving over my scalp, which is fucking peculiar. Every time I focus on it, it’s like the sensation sweeps over me again, but it isn’t actually gone yet.  It’s just a shudder.  When I put my fingers in my hair, Y/N does too. Just a hand on top, brushing to assure.  I think I hum, to say thanks.

On my thigh, she’s dragging a finger, making letters… T, A, L, K.

“Talk?”

Two taps.

“You meang to keep me occ-hupied?”

Two taps. A squeeze.  Well, it would keep her informed too.  “I can’t. Tell how clyear I am.”

I   N O.  

“Don’t wan t tell you my secrets.”  I talk steadily, to help.  

She lifts my hand to her mouth so I can feel her smile and say something short.  Insert joke about already knowing secrets.  Then she puts my hand on her wrist and reaches around to the back of my head, asking about the numbness I guess.  I drag her touch down to where I can feel - “T’here,” - the nape of my neck.  My cheeks, jaw, my whole head is in Novocain.

P R A C

T I S E

She puts a bottle in my hand, then takes it away again.  My jaw’s jerked open and closed.  She draws big letters into my thigh again.

D R I N K

I find the straw with my fingers and push it into my mouth, right back, feeling the stick in the muscle, and try sucking.  Coolness hits deep in the back of my throat, and I can drink.

She pokes me in the tummy.

I work the straw out of my mouth, I think “Wiyl that be for eateng?”  Two taps.  

Yeah, I suppose we’ve got nothing but time.

She holds my hand. She doesn’t have to do that.  I’ll probably bruise it to crap with holding too hard, but I shouldn’t worry about that sort of thing.  I need to just relax into it, let her be in charge.  She’ll change things if she needs to.  It’s not my fault.

Shit, Dean was right.  Me with myself for three days.  Fuck.

The numbness trickles down my neck and I keep swallowing just to feel it happen, confirm I can still do it, and I keep lifting my chin, moving the skin.  Y/N seems to stop what she’s doing, squeezing my hand and I squeeze back.  Somehow the sensation creeping onto my chest is especially unnerving.  I take deeper breaths, like I’m about to go under water but I can, I can focus and breathe normally.  It helps when she puts her hand on my chest.  The feeling of her fingers through the t-shirt, though, it slowly disappears.  Laying my hand on top of hers helps, but it’s surreal to feel her hand under mine, on me, with no pressure.  Surreal too, to be disconnected to where I think, up here.  Like swimming in a lake at night.

My armpits go, slowly my arms.  It’s weird.  It’s weird, it’s weird.  She rubs my forearms and every time she acknowledges my worry, a wave of panic floods through me.  I can’t tell if it’s a reaction or if she can see it’s coming.

She starts patting my knee, a pacey pat-pat-pat-pat clenching my hand as the feeling kind of oozes out of my arms.  I keep expecting coolness behind it, but it’s nothing and it slips down my ribs.

Shit.  Shit.  It’s my guts, my waist.  I can’t keep still with it.  Shit.  My torso will go before my hands.

She puts my hand on her mouth again and I think, I dunno, she’s saying something repetitive. It’s got an M in it, some breathe and noise.  I don’t know.  The dip of my hips is slithering away.  And now my groin, fuck.  Fuck I’d really prefer to not get a hard on through this but how the fuck.  It’s weird.  And I can’t sit still.  I keep wanting to wriggle my back, check the seat of my pants, just- but I’m losing balance when I lean forward, and her hands can’t follow what I’m doing, and I think I’m on the edge of the chair now.  FuuuUCK- almost tipped over, but my shoulders, she’s pushed back on something.  My legs are jiggling, the fucking floating arms and hands and I keep ducking, looking down to see them and _there’s nothing there._

Y/N gets in between my legs, holds my hand against her head as she puts it beside mine, as though she’s talking in my ear. I try not to push on her but it’s hard to tell.  I can’t hear what she’s saying, can’t even feel her breath on my ear, but I roll my head like I can work the feeling into my skull somehow.  Her jaw moves under my hand and I shift my thumb so it’s over her lips, feel them move in time with her patting my knee.  I breathe, and the sensation of touch is slipping off my hands like a glove coming off.  I think it’s my name, but that _m_ is the last thing I feel, like a kiss.  And then it’s gone.  I’ve grabbed hold of her other shoulder and it’s like my skeleton is floating.  I open and close my hand on the muscle just to feel it do something.

There’s space before me, warmth and size between my thighs, and it’s like my pants are being pulled slowly down my legs, her pat-pat-pat still there, the absence right at her fingertips.

I can shift my feet, find a fresh coolness on the floor, but my knees just go dark, and my jittering has my calves twitching but it’s going.  She moves away, and I think I tilt forward, trying to keep my ear beside hers.  Something’s tilting my head when I push, surely her, and there’s a slight vibration while her hands slide down my calves over and over, brushing my shins, firm and steady, and I’m pinching the skin with my left hand, lower and lower, till I’m pushing down on her hands as they press down on my feet.  Her other hand squeezes and pats and I guess she still talking in my ear.  Drag, drag, drags her fingers down the bones.  Small hands.  Steady.  Warm.  Slipping…  

Okay.  “Y/N?”   Fuck.  “Hmm- _Y/N?!_ -”  Fuckfuckfuck.   

Gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The curse is thorough. Sam can’t feel his skin. He can’t taste or smell, and can’t see or hear. He’s totally dependent on you, and he’s pretending it doesn’t suck.

It’s like.

Concussion.  

Ohshitthepressure, fuck, I can’t breathe!  My ribs?!!  My ribs are failing-  No, it’sahug!  A _hug_.  Oh Jesus, it’s Y/N hugging me, okay.  Okay.  Okay.

I can still feel inside.  I mean, the stuff of my insides can feel.  Her hug shifts, arms going up and down my back, and firm pats that I can feel through me, like she’s emphasising her words, then thuds, two solid ones, on my ribs.  It all eases off, and my jaw moves up and down.

“Do you wan me to speak?”

Thud thud.

“I’w be okay.”

Thud thud.  Holy shit, I know she knows Morse Code but I hope she doesn’t plan on communicating with _that_.

She pushes me back I think, sitting me upright and it’s like turning corners in deep space, trying to stop a ship in the ocean.  She moves me again, upright more. Or again.  Maybe I’m slumping without realising…  

So this is it.  I’m a fucking ball of consciousness.  I’m _somewhere_ …  The Invisible Man

Alright.  Time to see what I really can feel… “Mmm.”  Bit of a vibration there.  “Mmm.”  Feel it more if I go lower.  “Thankyou.”

Knee squeeze.  Ow, poke.  Two pokes for yes.

My arms float when she moves them, a bit too quickly, makes me feel like I’m swimming, and she- I think they’re in my lap.  Over my-  Oh son of a bitch.  Yeah.  Probably that, with all the blood pumping and weirdness.  Fuck it.

She’s pushed me upright again, squeezed my shoulders.

I’m gonna get serious Nightingale syndrome out of this.  Goddammit.  But she’s the nurse.  I’m the patient. I should just… give over.  And I’m realising now that I’m holding the armrests without thinking of it.  Maybe I won’t be as useless as I thought.

Two hard hits on my knee, firm and slow, with a squeeze, and then there’s nothing… she’s going somewhere?  “You going?”  Two pokes.  “Kay.”

There’s a back on this chair.  I’m gonna try concentrating on imagining it, kind of third-person my point of view, and lean back… there it is, pushing against my bones.  This is my head upright.  These are my knees apart.  These are my legs at right angles.  This is me flexing my ankles.  This is my back curved.  I probably won’t remember it but the map is comforting…

My head’s being wobbled, little No’s, kind of-  What is she doing?  I reach up and I think there’s something on me.  It’s big, or thick, a distance between my hands and my head.  “Hel-met?”

Two pokes.

Okay I’m just gonna talk and hope it works. “No, come on.  Deang’s gonna laugh.”  Two pokes.  Waggles my head.  I swipe at the air and bump into something.  “Oh my god.  A helmet, drinking from a straw.”  Seriously, could my goddamned life fail any harder?  

My shoulders get hoisted up and down a few times, badly - showing me she’s laughing, I guess, to make me laugh.  There’s pressure around me, my chest, and the way my head is tilted to the side, I think she’s hugging me from behind.   _This_ is how I get to have Y/N in my hands.  I can’t feel her, can’t see her and I’ve got a fucking helmet on my head.  Seriously.

Yeah.  Okay.  I’m lucky, I am.  I mean, Dean would’ve been good at this. Organized, careful, but this is nice.  Embarrassing, but also nice-  Woah, my leg! Okay, one-two, dropped on the ground.  Um.  “Gettingh up?”  Two pokes.

Shit this is going to take some doing.  She gets under my armpits somehow - I feel my arms go out and my shoulders hauled up - and she tugs a one-two- _three!_  I stand with it as she pulls me all the way up and ohshit I’m tall.  Jesus that’s a long way up.  “My feet! I can’t-”  I can’t correct myself without feeling my feet!  It feels like the ground is falling!  I can tense everything but my equilibrium just- I need more.  “Doun! Doun-down!”

God the chair is so low, and I spill into it, feeling like it should tip backwards and something should bruise but it just jarrs me inside, right up my spine.  Fuck, if I can’t go anywhere, I’m screwed.  Really, so screwed.

Man, did she notice, just then, how I was brushing my hair back? I mean, the helmet stopped me I think, and it’s just a habit, but what sort of dumb-knuckle action am I doing for that?

Y/N draws on my stomach, dragging a firm circle on me and I find I can tense my gut against it and make it easier for her, more accurate.  “Open?”

Tap.  Circle.

“Food?”

Tap.  Circle, again.  Slower.  Wait… almost a circle.

“Again?” I ask.  “Redo?”

Tap-tap.  She takes both my hands and puts them on something in front of me.  I try gripping, moving it about and it tilts, stutters a bit.  “Chair?”

Tap-tap.

“Uh, okay.  I’ll try.”  Firm grip, pushing it down, straightening legs and hinging myself off it when I falter - she must be in the chair for the weight.  Man, all this concentration to get my body to do something it’s never thought of before.  I still feel like I’m floating, still wobbly, but with the chair so rigid - not soft and shifting with me like Y/N did - it’s easier.

She drags her fingers down my gut twice and takes my hand, putting it on the armrest where I was sitting, and I get the message, easing myself down with a thump.  My mind’s eye has to do everything, all the looking and feeling and listening it’s ever recorded, replayed again for the benefit of my muscles and balance.

Two slow hits on the knee - “Okay.” - and she’s gone again for a while.  

It’s kind of hard to mark time.  I already feel like we’ve been doing this for ages…

…I keep listening for something.  There’s nothing, but if I do it for too long- I mean, how will I know if I fall asleep.

Does it matter?

Doing something is probably most sensible, more sensible than trying to think of thoughts.  I might do a roll call of my muscles and limbs.  Neck to the right, right shoulder, elbow out, fingers one at a time…

…

If I flex my butt cheeks one at a time it makes my hips tilt.

…

I can do it to a can-can rhythm.

…

Tap-tap then pressure on my wrist and she’s lifted it up, pulled me forward to lean in my seat and wave my arm back and forth, banging it on something low down.  Well that makes no sense.  Now I _can’t_ wave it.  It’s stuck.  She pulls it again and it shudders on something, bumping into a box? Chair legs?  Then she moves both hands, moves them in opposite directions in a curve- “Wheelchair?”

Fucking tap tap man. Where the hell did we have one of those?! “Yes! Is dat why you ’err gone so long?”

Tap tap.

Y/N puts my hands on the library chair again, helps me up by my shoulders, and I use everything to just stand straight and push all my weight directly down under my feet while she moves the wheelchair around, until she takes my arm again and leads it back, her hands on my chest- I think- and my back, holding me upright, and I sit…

Yeah.  Nice.  “This is nice!”

Tap-tap.

“Dank you. I think U’m getting better at’a taps,” I say.  “Oh hey.  We hab, like, portable ramps?”

Tap.

Oh my god, I’m laughing but… okay.  We’ll figure it out.

…

So, we’re somewhere else, I don’t really know where.  Somewhere that’s beyond steps down, and down again, so I’m guessing the kitchen?

“Um, you there?”

Tap tap.

“So,” I speak carefully, working on the words. “I’ve ben feeying a bit awk-ard about tal-king, ‘cause I can’t feey it an’ ip I forget you’re there… well, who the hehr knows what I migh’ say.”

Tap tap.

Go steady.  “But I’m gedding bedder at feeying what you’re doing, withouwt skin.  I meang, withouwt touch.  But I feew wike I’m migh’ get a bit snappy, so I’m sorry if I’m short wit you.”

Tap tap.

…

My sense of time is completely warped.  Sometimes I feel like minutes have passed, sometimes I can believe it’s still the same day, and I shuttle back and forth between thoughts and ideas so it doesn’t help the ‘passing’ of it.  It’s not as linear as it usually is.  Not that I guess it’s especially linear normally, strictly.  It’s just I can’t remember what thought I’ve had, whether I’ve really thought it, or if it’s a footnote echoing from my semantic system…

Y/N is there, which I’m appreciating.  I forget she’s there until something moves, when she’s moved or removed her hand.  Nothing communicative.  But the distance between those things is literally imperceptible.

Meta stuff feels a bit risky, to be honest, as though it’ll suck me to the edge of sanity a little quicker.  I keep hearing Dean’s voice in my head telling me to quit braining, stop over analysing, replay a movie, a song, anything to keep from spiraling into some sort of planeless, non-dimensional loop of thought.  But there are moments when I think Fuck it! I’m here, doing this shitful run of pointless lesson-learning.  Who’s gonna stop me?!  It’s _my_ fucking mind!

My thoughts are already, so often, slippery Schroedinger’s Cat things, gone as soon as I try to pick them up.  Maybe that’s the way it normally is, and I don’t notice because I’m distracted by focus or stimulus.  I mean, at least I have _some_ stimulus, otherwise it’d be essentially dead.  Not dead, just…

away.  And unravelling.  Just concepts built and untethered and uncontained, without anything actually perceived, no thing or witness, to hang it on.  Just the idea of a tree that has both fallen and not fallen in a forest that may or may not exist.  It Kant mean anything!  A ha ha….  

That was _terrible_.

Sometimes I’m not sure I haven’t actually laughed out loud.  And that’s when I restart Die Hard behind my eyes.

…

Eating is officially my least favourite thing right now.  

I can’t smell it, I can’t taste anything.  I can somewhat detect a thing in my mouth and then a poking push in my tongue and Y/N drags pressure down my throat to indicate swallowing.  It’s really fucking uncomfortable but I honestly don’t blame her because if I breathed in at the wrong time, or confused my suck with my breath, or whatever she can imagine going wrong, it’s worth it.  I don’t even know if I’ve kept it all in.  I feel my head nudged around and it’s probably her wiping my chin.  Wiping my goddamn chin after she’s fed me solids through a straw, while I wear a helmet in my wheelchair.

I am a patient man.

…

There’s this threshold of tolerance, like…  I’ve been pretending - not pretending, _saying_ \- convincing myself I’ll be okay. Of course I _will_ be okay, I know I will.  Cognitively I know, I’ll be fine.  But I’ve been talking like I’ll be fine the whole time and I fucking won’t.  There was an episode of Mythbusters where Kari and Adam did Chinese Water Torture and it was a totally unscientific experiment to see whether the restraining equipment made all the difference in how effectively the water torture worked, I think.  Anyway, there was a point where Kari, who chose the restraint, freaked out.  She panicked and cried and Tori got her out of there as quick as he could.  I keep thinking of her talking herself fine, and of how I sweated when she wasn’t.

I’m fine.  

I’m fine enough.

If I pretend I’m about to go to sleep, I’m fine enough.

Meanwhile I could die in here and she couldn’t tell.  I can feel the heat of the food go through me like I’m a string of dumb organs floating in a specimen jar, attached to my senseless brain.  I clear my throat, clear it over and over and poking where I can feel things gurgle or move.  I can hit my chest hard enough to feel it.  It’s noises in the next room.  I hit again, harder, just to see. The hit isn’t square, I can tell from the _ca-lunk_ of it, but I like the hollow thud I can feel in my back.  I try it again.  Clear my throat, more like a growl.

Y/N mustn’t be here.  Surely she’d be asking if I’m choking or something.  

I try the helmet, or at least try how much it protects me, and smack my palm on the side of it.  The feeling is _like_ noise, in my neck.  I hit my gut, then punch it sideways, and feel everything move and ache.  The ache is interesting.  Interesting is something, right?  And it’s familiar, in a dark kind of way.  I mean, violence is a big part of my life.  Totally normal for me.  I bang the helmet again, again-

WOh-! Fu- _shit!!_  I’m- AhChrist my knee! My elbows! A-   _Fuck!_ It’s-  It’s-

I’m.  God I’m gonna throw up.  I’m on the ground?  It’s like all my bones got slapped.  I’m a fucking drunk starfish on the ground.  And this helmet makes my head roll like a massive marble.  “Y/N?!”

Thump, thump.  

Fuck.

“Did you,” I’m lying down, on my shoulder and hip.  “Didju push me outta da chair?!”

Poke, poke.

 _“FUCK!”_  Jesus, I can tell I’m not moving but it’s still like being at sea.  “ _How_ am I gonna ge’ tup?”

On my back, she drags G - E - T - “Rrrrrrrr _fuck_ , yeah,” - U - “I _know!”_ \- P.

I take a few breaths, big ones, into the big stupid breathing section of my system.   _Fuck_ this.  

“Okay. Okay. Okayokayokay…”  Man, everything creaks.

Okay.  I guess I’m twisting a bit, sliding my shoulders and hips and feeling about, where my bones can hit hardness, where my weight goes.  Flat is here.  Down is here, elbows and knees, heavy head.  I might break my nose but I won’t get concussion.  I can balance on three limbs and reach out, and there’s something upright, flat.  Slippery enough on my knuckles that it feels like a forcefield, not a thing.  “Dat da back o’ d’bench?”

Tap tap.

Reaching, feeling up I can tell I hit something, the lip of the benchtop.  When I hold where I think it is, my fingers don’t meet.  I tilt my hand up and down, notice how that moves my arm instead, and while I focus on this the rest of me does what it knows to do.  I use my hold to guide myself up, visualize it, push down into gravity and imagine what straight feels like, and stand.  I flip my hold and use the benchtop to guide my balance, push and pull it against my legs when I lock them straight.  And when it feelings like I can’t straighten any more, “I’m standing?”

Tap tap.

The chair hits my calves, not enough for me to buckle, and she gives me the sign for down on my back.  I sit, and breathe.  It’s annoyingly familiar…

That was awful.  But I’m okay.  I mean, I got myself off the ground.  Then a weight pushes down on my thighs and after a few seconds, a warmth seeps through my comatose skin.  She folds my arms around myse- around her.  She’s sitting in my lap, making me hug her.  She’s like negative space.

There’s a vibration somewhere and I put my hand up, try to find her throat and she guides me to it - I can feel where she takes over my effort - and I imagine she’s talking.  I can’t tell what, it’s all dull, but it’s still nice to feel her.  I try not to squeeze too hard.

“I can’t tehw what you’re saying.”  She stops moving.  “But dis helps.  Makes you feew wreal.”  There’s a pull behind my neck and my head tilts. “I cang feew dat.”  

After a while she gets off my lap, and the leaving makes a floating sensation.  Like when you’d press the back of your hands against a doorway and then step out to feel them float up with the habit of your muscles. I imagine floating too, up behind her, astrally projected to her corporeal form while my body anchors the day in history.  I’d watch over her, hang around, ghost-like, happily occupied with my voyeurism while she butters toast and reads laundry instructions, and then she wouldn’t have to stay with my body till Sunday.

She pulls me backwards, I think.  Yes backwards, because we’ve hit the steps and she has to tilt me right back and haul me up them both to get to the bedroom corridors.  Why am I so heavy, Y/N?  I’m just a cloud of thoughts!

I’m so fucked.

Then she takes my hands and pulls them wide and low.  I think she’s put them on the wheel rails.  And she leaves them there.

“You wan’ me to push?” Seriously?

Tap tap.

Seriously.  I guess she’ll help, or steer.  “Fuck.  Okay.”  I grip, at least I think I do.  It takes a few goes to be sure they’re symmetrical, the right shape, and tugging on something solid.  So I grip and push, and slip.  But I felt myself move.  Not much but, I fish around for the rail again - I’m still struggling to be sure of where it is and that I’ve actually got it - grip (probably too hard) and push, and _move_.  Damn.

Tap tap.

The way my head moves I think she’s poking at my cheeks, probably trying to get me to smile. “Yeah, i’ss good.  I can feew, fee-yul my weight.  Use somet’ing.”

I keep going - fish, grab, adjust, push - steadily, feeling the momentum when my hands push again. After a while she’s directing me around a corner.  It’s nice.  I’m doing something, using my body.  I feel better.  A fuck tonne better than I’ve felt in hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI: Kant is an 18th century German philosopher, and I’m probably appropriating this, but the Kant reference is about this: “According to the “transcendental unity of apperception”, the concepts of the mind (Understanding) and the perceptions or intuitions that garner information from phenomena (Sensibility) are synthesized by comprehension. Without the concepts, perceptions are nondescript; without the perceptions, concepts are meaningless — thus the famous statement, “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions (perceptions) without concepts are blind.” [Kant's Theory of Perception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant#Theory_of_perception) I mean, obviously Sam has comprehension and understanding, it’s just he’s not got much to perceive right now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Sam is trapped in his body, he depends on you for everything, no matter how frustrating or awkward it is. There are some things, though, you can’t be there for.

So whatever elation that burst of activity gave me has come crashing down.  For one, pushing a wheelchair is damn hard. Maybe I’m aching from adrenaline too, but holy shit I’m a cloud of fucking heavy thoughts.

Secondly, we’re in the bathroom.  I’m sure; there’ve been a whole bunch of stop-start pushes and turns, and only the bathroom is this tucked away.  

“Y’know what, Y/N,…  I can jus’ hol’ dit.”

Wa- _Oh!  Ow._  My neck!  She totally just hit me in the helmet!  “Tha’ was uncall for.  But Y/N, serious’y- I-yiy-ca- sto- _stop_ it!”  Now she’s wobbling my frikken head around- I’m gonna fall outta the fucken chair.  “I- hey!  STOP IT! Okay!  I ged it!  I jus’ hate i’ okay?” Ohwow, I think I’ve grabbed her arms.

Tap tap.  And by tap tap, I mean she just head-butted me twice.  

Ohhhh man.

“Okay, so pu’ ta chair in fron’ dof me an do rike we did getting ginto dis.”  Maybe if I give her all the instructions, it’ll go more smoothly.  “An’ yead me doun an’ jus’, don’.  Look. At anyt’ing, okay?  I meang, obv’ousry dere are t’ings you gotta do por me, but just pu’da paper immy han’ bepore you go, okay?  Fuck.  I am so pfucking sorry abou’ dis.  Ip I had jus’ maited till Deangot back, maybe-”

She lifts my arms up, thunks my hands on the back of a chair hard enough that the rise of my thumb hurts.  

Yeah okay, it’s using a toilet.  She probably doesn’t need instructions.  

The chair is sturdy.  I get myself standing, and there’s a pause…  “Do I nee’to moob somewhere?”

Tap tap, on my left hip, so I step sideways carefully, feeling guided.  Then there’s a slight tugging-  fucking, that’s my pants.  Frikken track pants, that’s why she asked for them. And-

My breath was just interrupted a little, with a push back and a mooshing in the cheeks firm enough that my jaw was pushed open and- I think she just kissed me.

I can’t-  I can’t even think about it because I’m sure I’m goddamned bare assed and being guided down onto a fucking toilet seat, as safely as Very Fucking Quickly will allow and then, tap-tap on my shoulder…

“Are you gone?”

Nothing.

I squeeze my hands and, sure enough, one of them closes oddly so I’m just going to spend a hell of a lot of time organising that paper into something useful.  And… not thinking about my fucking life.

…

I don’t even remember the last few whatevers.  Hours probably.  I hate that I don’t really know what happened in the bathroom.  She pulled up my pants, got me back in the chair, washed my hands, I think she drew O K on my thigh, I dunno.  I should be better at dealing with this but it’s getting kinda rough.  And she’s been missing for a while, which is throwing me off.

She kissed me just to distract me from being embarrassed, and it didn’t make me less embarrassed, to be honest.  It just reminded me that she’s never kissed me before.  I think I’ve kissed her on the head once or twice, during a hug or whatever, but I don’t remember her ever doing that for me.  A pity kiss does not make me feel better.

“How’ong tiw bedthime?”

There’s no answer, not for a while.

I guess all I can do is wait.

…I mean, I’ve done meditation and there is _no way in hell_ I’m doing that while like this, not yet anyway.  There’s a difference between calming the fuck down and… sending myself away…

What’s really confusing is the uselessness of my visual cortex. I haven’t lost memories: why aren’t I thinking in images? Why is visualising so hard? …Maybe she cursed my brain more than my body. Maybe the loss was psychosomatic. Or maybe the curse travelled up the nerves too and knocked out those parts of my brain…  Not that it matters…

I’ve been trying to think of whether this existential, metaphysical shitshow could earn me a level-up in some culture or religion. Maybe _kensho_ , or maybe if I could actually do the time, a kind of _bodhi_?  I dunno, just ‘of age’ would be nice.  The problem is I don’t feel connected to anything.  Not the universe, not another plane. Nothing. It _feels_ like I have a fucking universe in my head, echo-y, vacant and edgeless, and everything beyond that may as well be theoretical. Even what I can feel Y/N doing (or not doing - did she go home for the day or something?) is more and more becoming a series of signals, or ideas, or things that maybe I imagined.  (Hey there presentism, you can fuck off.)

I read a bit about phenomenological reality and I’m wondering how universal shit can be when existence is perceived like this - you know, the _knowledge_.  So much philosophy sounds like privileged wankery right now.  I mean, there’s someone out there who thinks that if I can’t receive any input that’s “real”, then I only exist because Y/N can see me, so my belief in myself depends on my belief in her, but that _doesn’t make it true_ , per se…

Dammit I need to stop philosophising or I’ll deconstruct my brain. See? Pointless, mind-wandering shit. Bar flies do it better.

I can’t even organise all the concepts right now, ‘cause I’ve got this low-key fear that Y/N’s gone to bed without me, or that I’ve forgotten she told me to sleep here, or something.

I guess all I can do is wait.  I don’t really know where I am, so I’m not about to roll myself off a step, or into a bookshelf…  I’m being a super awesome patient, that’s for fucking sure.  Sitting and waiting and not complaining.  I‘m being a good patient.

Which requires _patience._  Fuuuuck, deep breath.  

“Y/N?  How’ong tiw bedtime?”

I can, I should be able to do this and not take it out on Y/N and not think about getting a kiss from her while my pants are down.  

What happened to being with me “the whole time”?  Christ.  I feel stupid, and hot.  This sucks.

Tap tap.

“Yes till bedtime?”

Tap.

“No?  I’m athking pfor a pfucking number, Y/N.”  We still have to get all the way to the bedrooms, I think.  Fucking, fuck _I think._  “Are we in da yibrary?”

Tap tap.

“I’d ‘ike to go to bed pyeaze.”  

Tap tap.

“Thank you.”

Sitting here for ages, waiting on I don’t frikken know what.  Why aren’t we moving?  Like, why aren’t we just- fuck this.   _I’m_ moving me.

I lean down for the wheel rails and find resistance quickly, pushing aimlessly, except she grabs my wrists.  I snatch them back and yell, “Ow get mysel’ there ip you wron’t!”  Not being able to hear myself is torturous, and the volume actually feels like something.  “I wan’to fucking lay doun! Okay?!  WRest! Do you understan’?   _Rest!_ ”

She’s squeezing my shoulders, little pulses like she’s emphasising words I can’t goddamn hear, and drags her hands down my arms until she’s holding my hands.  Breathing hard feels like something, being angry feels like something, and I resist her guidance but what the fuck else am I going to do?  Crawl out onto the highway?

She lifts my feet off the little shelves, pulls my hands forward and- God could it get any more humiliating.  Crawling?

It’s not easy either-  Wait.  Wai-wait.

Ooooh Son of a bitch.  She’s put a mattress on the floor.  

So I can’t fall out of bed.

The helmet comes off and she leads me forward by my armpits, tapping twice and I crumple down against the flatness.  

Jesus, I can’t believe how tired I am.  I kind of organize myself into some sleeping shape, and feel heaviness this way, let it coax me calm.

Just not having to navigate the floor, not having to balance using muscles alone, holy cow it’s a relief.

“Are you going to sleep next to me?”

Tap tap.

“Thanks Tap-tap.”

Tap tap.

“Yeah?”

Tap tap.

“What?”

Tap tap.

“Go to sleep Tap-tap.”  My body chuckles all by itself.

The _rest_.  The rest lets me think more clearly and I can imagine her dragging a big mattress from somewhere, uselessly yelling at me that she’ll be right back, running to get things while I blankly stare at nothing.  I hope she forgives me for being an asshole.

I’m glad I have her with me.  I wish I could get something more, though.  Anything.  Shit I’d give another day of it if I could just have my sight, or my hearing.  Or my skin.  God that would be something.  Like, in this job, the contact is such a necessity sometimes, having to carry each other, or stitch or clean.  The cleaning always gets me.  I remember one hunt I dislocated my shoulder and Dean got this cut on his back.  Y/N stitched him up on the other bed and she kept glancing up at his brow, what she could see of it, measuring his discomfort while he pretended he was fine.  I was so jealous.  Well, not jealous, but I learned to watch for her care when she did that for me.

So there are those times when we have to touch each other but then sometimes we don’t, and we do anyway.

We played cards a few nights ago - Uno - and started fighting over whether I’d put down a collect-4 or not.  After a drink or two, curse words came with a light slap, a backhand, something, just for the excuse.  Probably just humans needing contact.

Maybe it’s more than just need though.  Or at least maybe just because it’s a need doesn’t mean it’s less than.

She squeezes my hand and I close it in reply, then she lifts my arm up and it doesn’t come down, not all the way.  My shoulder is pushed up, and if I didn’t know any better I’d say we’re spooning.  

“Am I hugging gyou?”

Tap tap.

“Am I getting ga mou’ful o’fhair?”

Tap tap, tap tap.  Her laughter bounces my arm, and I pull her closer, pull again just to feel the soft give of her mass, a human, giving where she should, and that resistance, it feels kinda primal.  As though my body recognises another body and hugs to communicate.

For some reason, my fear about whatever happened in the bathroom is gone, now that she’s here.  It’s doesn’t matter.  I was probably just venting, redirecting my awkwardness.  A kiss is not that big of a deal, not right now.

With everything resting and still, it’s easier to feel what she’s doing, and what she does to me.  Her lungs inflate, and she’s warm, kind of shows me my size…  

Fuck it, I can do more than just wait.

“Did you kiss me before?”

Tap tap.

“To distrac’ me?”

Tap tap tap.

“What? Th’ee taps?!  S’at maybe?”

Tap tap.

“Maybe.”  Maybe, huh?  “Bedder dan no.”  

So what’s maybe.  Damn, sleep’s no where near my brain now.   _Maybe_. So, what, just to keep me thinking?  Or happy?  If I’m thinking sensibly I know she wouldn’t lie, and she wouldn’t mean to embarrass me, and she wouldn’t kiss me _just_ to distract me, not during this.  That’s like, that would be very not okay, really.  So…she thinks that would make me happy.  So… logic says she meant it.

So yeah.

Suddenly I feel like I’ve got a better sense of direction.

…

“Y/N, you ‘sleep?”

…tap.

Lol.  “Why dig you tell me you maybe wan’ to kiss me?”

… Y/N doesn’t tap, but I feel my arm move around, the mattress tilting with her movement, towards me I think.  “Shit sorry.  Notta a yes/no q’estion. Um.  How did- mmmfuck.”  Closed questions, you dickhead.  “Didju know I wante d’you to?”

…Tap tap tap.

“Well, I did.  I do.”

Oh… shit.  I just confessed, walked straight into a confession I wouldn’t normally make, after sleep and sensory deprivation has blurred my boundaries and perspective and Holy Shit, she kissed me on the frikken cheek and I’ve gone and confessed everything.

Her arm pulls on my waist and bends my body into hers.  It’s so nice to be able to feel my muscles meet the form of her.  It seems pretty intimate, but I still don’t know what she thinks.

“I um.  I guess you’re saying dat ‘cause itd be a nice t’ing to hear, right ngow.  Halp me be okay, you know-”

Tap tap.

“-it does halp. It rea’y does.”  Filling my mind with thoughts about her deciding to kiss me, man I don’t care if it’s half pity - the other half isn’t.  

“Was it on my mout’?”

Tap tap.

“Do you wan’to- when dis en’s, can I kiss you back?”

Taptaptaptaptaptap-

I hope my face shows what I feel.  I hope my laughter sounds happy and not like it’s a joke.  

I wonder if I’d be this silly with it if I weren’t in a constant existential crisis. “Y’know Dean’s been gibing me shit for-”

When the talking is difficult, and my neck is pulled and I can’t breathe properly… it’s a kiss, right? If I try and kiss back… yeah, it’s just smooshing.  But she’s pulling more, bending into me more, by the bones.

It’s gotta be.  She’s kissing me.  I’m trying to build an image in my mind, how it would look, with her laying against me on a mattress in the library.  Her on her side, holding me firmly, things around for just in case, and I’m just going to hope about the way she might be looking at me.

And now that I can breathe freely I have to ask, “Didju again? Jus then?”

Tap tap.

“I t’ink I’m smilin’ like a n‘idiot”  

She puts my hand to her mouth and taps twice.

“You too?”

Tap tap.

“You know, I can feeyul you under my sking.  Your warmt’ seeps t’rough.”  She wriggles and it’s like she’s inside a sleeping bag, in the dark, snuggling into me.

When I said before that Y/N is steady like a boat, I know it doesn’t sound like a steady thing, but it is.  You need a boat good enough to get you through the storm and that’s what she is - tenacious and sound.  It’s not like a rock or a lighthouse metaphor.  She isn’t unaffected by the shit around her.  She weathers it, and rolls with it.  It’s an image I’ve had of her for a while - someone who, no matter what happens, will float, in the end, even if she’s small, and she can carry someone if she has to.  I’m adding an anchor to my analogy.

If I was a bit more confident, of her, of my ability to talk, if I could get just a bit more feedback, damn I could lay here and tell her every time I’ve thought of kissing her, every moment I’ve been proud or impressed, or that first meeting when I registered how pretty she was but then slapped myself every time I had a thought about her afterwards.  How I’d lie to myself _She’s not that good, get over it!_ Because nothing was ever going to happen! So I pretended I didn’t see beautiful, or strong, or loving.  And it was such a con.  A useless, exhausting con.  

I could say all of it, without any feedback and trust it was ridiculously romantic to her too, or… but I’m probably not even speaking clearly, and I don’t know how long I can talk for anyway…

She’s probably asleep, and I keep thinking of how I can literally feel her under my skin.  It’s very real, and true, and now.  I wonder why I never noticed this feeling before.

These suspended moments, just before I fall asleep with Y/N in my arms, I hope they’re what I dream of too…

…

 

_Sam._

_I love what you’ve done with the place._

_Did you do this on purpose?_

_You did, didn’t you.  You apple shiner._

_And you know?  I appreciate the thought.  (Oop.  Too soon?)  Because as much as I like - and by ‘like’ I mean adore - I **adore** doing things to your body, Sam, I only do them to get to your brain._

_Well, that’s not true.  I like doin’ stuff to every part of you Sam.  Even the parts that sleep in other beds._

_It did occur to me once that I could crack that cone and poke around inside.  See if I could make you smell brown. Try some puppetry.  Maybe Thunderbird you through a game of soccer?  Lol._

_Or even, oooooh I dunnoooo… rub out a few memories?_

_You think I don’t care about you Sam but you don’t know.  Doing without Dean in your mind?  That Dadish tickertape internal monologue of what he’s probably thinking?  I’d be freeing you.  You’d damn well_ grow _, without him in here.  All that judgement.  All that Should’ve.  Big brother’s are overrated._

_And I’ll get rid of that pathetic crush you have too.  No need to waste everyone’s time._

_There’s that feeling of running.  Yeah! You gotta keep fit man!  You think maybe if you feel it enough you can keep your real body slim and taut and buff? Oh my word Sam, I’m gonna miss it.  Those long limbs and that giving skin.  Heals up so nice.  And hey, what if the spell doesn’t lift?  Dude.  What if Dean botches the fix?  Don’t worry, even after a few weeks of this, of you and me and **the void,** when you’re just paper and wood and withering hope, you’ll probably still feel like running._

_Yep!  I! Will! Miss it!  But if you really wanna strip it back to brass tacks, whittle it down to just the core of you.  Well, I’m all for that, my boy.  Give me my meta.  Let’s psych couch the nothingness into the next dimension and figure out the meaning of 42, yeah?  And hey, let’s see if we can think of way to convince Y/N to shoot you in the fucking helmet.  ‘Cause, that way that beautiful sucker won’t have to spend her best days giving you pity-kisses while wiping your ass and straw-feeding your useless, selfish, god damned meat-_

“GA-UUH! Nuh!-”

_NO!_

No.

Fuck.

…Just me.

It’s just me.  In here.  He’s not real.  Just.  Oooh fuck.  

I’m boiling.  Fucking… Jesus _Christ_ I gotta breathe.

Shit- “Y/N?!”  Fuck, where is she?   _“Y/N!”_

I’m a weird shape.  I’m stiff and I’ve-  I’ve lost my down.  “I’m okay.”  I don’t know what I’m doing.  Her arms tangle with mine somehow. “Are you okay?”

Replaying that in my head, I’m realising I kind of burst out.  Like, flailed.  I know I hit something but I thought- I didn’t register at the time.

Tap tap.

“Did I hitchu? I’m sorry!  Sowry if I hi’ you!”

…Tap tap.

“I’m so sowry!” Fuck.   _Fuck it._  Frikken woken up with a great big guy punching her in the head or something.  For fuck’s sake.  She arranges my arms for me, getting between them, and I can feel her weight press down on my left arm, pin it to the mattress. I wrap my right around her, feel her head nudge my chin up.  And there’s this little jolt, like a hiccup, against my chest. “I’m so sowry, Y/N.  I’w make i’ bedder lyader.  P’omise.”

Tap tap.

I’m so goddamned sick of tap tap.  How is it that I’ve lost my senses but she’s the one who can’t communicate?  Every now and then I imagine what it would’ve been like if this had happened to Dean, or Y/N.  It doesn’t really matter who it is, it’s torture on everyone.

Without meaning to, I’ve curled around her, and I’m stroking her hair I guess, stroking something, my mouth against her forehead, or near there.  I remember doing something like this a few weeks ago, hugging her after we had to deliver someone to the hospital.  It was all bad luck, we both knew, but I couldn’t figure out what to say to make her smile.

So many times I’ve wanted to have her in my arms to keep her safe.  Right here, where we can’t get much closer, is about as safe as I can make her.  

The only place safer is as far from me as possible.

“I hope Deang gets back soon.”

Tap tap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a general note that I’m going to assume Sam hasn’t really gotten too deeply into epistemology (philosophy, the theory of knowledge) (says the author, covering her lazy ass). Behold, I can quote wikipedia: [Presentism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_%28philosophy_of_time%29) holds that the past and future are unreal, and only an ever-changing present is real. [Bodhi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_\(spiritual\)#Buddhism) \- A Theravada term, meaning “awakening or “understanding. “Someone who is awakened has gained insight into the workings of the mind which keeps us imprisoned in craving, suffering and rebirth, and has also gained insight into the way that leads to nirvana, the liberation of oneself from the imprisonment.” and Kensho - Zen term meaning ”seeing into one’s true nature.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean comes back with a cure.

Being sure I’m awake is getting harder.  I don’t like it much, I feel too vulnerable and lost, even when I’m upright in the wheelchair.  “Y/N?”

Tap tap.

“Angy wo’d from Deang?”

Tap, tap, tap.

“T’ree?  T’ree ‘ours?”

Tap-tap.

“Whatduh we do till dem?”

TAP.  Tap-TAP-tap-tap- _tap, tap._

“Um.  What?”

Harder: _TAP_ , tap-TAP-tap-tap _tap, tap_.  Then she adds a steady tap, tap, tap, tap on my other leg, and does it again in time.   _Tap_ , tap-TAP-tap-tap _tap, tap._

“Is dat… Is dat Seben Nationg Army?”

Tappity-tappity-tappy-tappy-tap.

Oh my God.  “YES!  Yes, dis is good. Okay.  Hi’ me!  Ha-ha-ha!”

…She must be thinking of something… TAP!  Ta-ta-tap! Ta-ta-tap! …Squiggly lines on my thighs.  

She jumped to advanced on song number 2 already.  

TAP!  Ta-ta-tap! Ta-ta-tap! - What the hell? - t-TAP, t-TAP, t-TAP… TAP! T-t-tap!–  

“Back in Byack!”

Tappy-tappy-tappy-tappy!

“I c’uld do dis aaaaaall day!” I’m laughing, I can feel it in my ribs.

Her hands squeeze my shoulders, and I do my best to smile.  This experience is starting to feel like a whole other kind of falling.

…

“Okay, what about 20 Questions?”

…Tap tap.

“No, id’ll be fine.  We’w jus’ - I’w ask aw da q’estiongs,” I say.  We played the song game for so long she had change to drumming on my shoulders.  “You go’ somet’ing?”

Tap tap.

“Issit black?”

Tap.

“Hmmm, issit am absense ob light?”

Tap.

“Issit a cabvernous vacancy?”

 _Tap_.

“I dunno. Not’ing’s coming to me- OW!” She’s waggling me by the helmet and I’m sure I’ve gotten hold of her forearms now.  I hope she’s laughing too.

“Issit de bes’ person I know?”

My head tilts back, a little thunk from her I think.  It all lets up and then the pressure on my thighs tells me she’s sitting in my lap.  I let her put my arms where she wants them and I test them against what’s there - her hip I think.

“I feew wike you coul’ si’ here untiw Deang’ets back, an it wou’d be wike i’ didn’ even happen.  Yike a secret on’y one ob us realdy knows.”

She squeezes around my shoulders and I hold on as tightly as I think is kind.  I wish I could ask her to sit here till the end, because last time she got up it was such a strange sensation and I don’t want to float away again.

…

“Y/N?”

Tap tap.

“I can’ tehw ip I been syeeping.”  A little flicker of panic sparks in my chest as I realise it.  “My bwain’s not doing anyt’ing.”  We had breakfast.  We did the song and questions thing.  And we had lunch.  I think.  But I don’t know.  It’s beginning to be that without something moving me, or moving on me, I just go blank.

We’re going somewhere, and Y/N’s pushing me now because when I was pushing I kept overshooting, bending over too far with no functional balance, and I’d tip.  My vestibular system seems to be losing it.

My feet are stepped forward and I lean over like she’s going to lead me to the mattress, which she does, guiding me onto my back.

She puts her hands on my thighs and drags the pressure down, all the way to my feet.  Then she raises one and starts to-ooooooh sssssssssshit.  “Massage?”

Tap tap.

“T’aaaaankyou.”

This is, oh wow, this is good.  This is perfect.  This is clearly another person doing something nice, something one human can do to another.  It kind of reminds me of what I am.  It’s a strange phantom sensation but it’s definitely there, like the heavy shadow of a massage, and it’s exactly what I need….

Aaaw fuckyeah.

…

“Y/N, id it nigh’time?”

 _Tap_.  

What was that?  That had knuckles.

She grabs my upper arm, kinda rough, and pulls me to sitting.  I have to really think about my weight on my ass, my equilibrium, to hold myself upright. I put my hands out either side to make it stick, but that’s not what’s got me curious.  Something’s different.  “Are you okay? Are you angry?”

Tap tap-tap tap, tap, on the back of my forearm.

“Dean?”

Tap, tap.

“You go’ tany noos?”

There’s a tug on my chin and a straw is fed onto my tongue.  I swallow carefully and wait, and surely it has to be the cure.  Holy crap.  I’m waiting very hopefully.

Waiting very, _very_ hopefully.

Come the fuck on cure.

“How’ong?”

A squeeze on my shoulder.  He doesn’t know…

“How’ong now?”

Tap.

It didn’t work.  Okay.  

Alright.  Maybe I can sleep till the end.  Maybe- shit, _“Y/N?!”_

Tap tap, and she squeezes my fingers.

Fuck okay, I thought she’d gone.  Though there’s nothing really to say that’s her.  Could just be Dean using four fingers.

Or someone else altogether.  Jody or someone.  

Anyone really.

They could be in another room, or getting ingredients.  Or Y/N is helping Dean do something and he’s brought someone else back and they, maybe they’re not a friend.  

Maybe Y/N isn’t _able_ to be here.  

“Y/N?!  Is dat rea’y you?”  As if that would reveal someone?!

Taptap.  

Why so quick?

Back I get pushed.  It has to be Dean moving me because I’m lowered this time, not guided, by my neck onto my back, with a quick pat on my shoulder, and he starts writing on my stomach.  S L E E P.

“Syeep? Why?”

D R E A M on my stomach again.  R O O T so quickly I nearly miss it.

I don’t want to dream again.  But if they’re asking for it, maybe someone will meet me there.

So I’ll just make like I’m going to sleep.

I don’t know when that will begin.  I’m so wired.  It’s so hard to tell…

…

“Sam?”

Y/N?  Is that Y/N’s voice?

“Sam, it’s me.  I took some dream root.  Are you okay?”

I- I knew someone would- I don’t even know how to get to her.  I mean- there’s no plane here.  And no mouth of mine here either, to talk with.

“Sam, I can hear you think!  But you don’t seem to be anywhere.  Or you’re everywhere.”

Holy fuck.

“Yeah! That’s what I was thinking.  This is… really not what I expected. You seem like you’re sort of okay?”

Sort of.  It’s getting harder to hold onto my thinking, or have thinking happen like… it’s watery.  It’s very weird having you here like this.

“I.  Yeah, I didn’t expect things to be so dark.  Shit, that’s a bit loaded.  U-hum, I mean I thought your imagination would fill things in.  Sorry, it feels a bit intrusive like this.  I thought when I got here I’d… see you.”

No, it doesn’t seem to be to working like that.  Maybe because of how it happened.  I can imagine stuff though, but it’s hard.

“Oh! You thinking of the chair?”

Yeah!  Behind me!

“Yeah it’s like, badly lit.  It’s murky.   …Hey don’t clam up on me now.”

I feel like I’m just evaporating away.

“Yeah, I can see why.  Dean said Tell him to go to his happy place.”

Huh.  There’s been a lot of Die Hard.

“Ha!  He’ll love that! …I don’t imagine that’s really your happy place though.”

No, well.  I mean happy places are… with the visualising…  I mean, _you’re_ there… You know what, maybe that’s private.

“Of course!  Sorry!  Look, um, Dean got a recipe but it doesn’t seem to have worked.  He’s gone to the storeroom to tweak an ingredient and hopefully the next try will work.”

What if it makes it permanent?

“Wha- Why would it do that? That’s a completely different manipulation.”

Yeah I guess.  Fuck, yeah I _know_ that.  Why the hell would I believe a dream?!  I should fucking know better.  Just gonna have to learn how to tune him out all over again and-

“Sam.  Hey Sam, listen to me-”

It’s so nice to hear your voice.  It’s amazing to feel it so close.

“Yours too.  I mean, I miss you looking at me.  It’s um…  I miss you.”

She misses me.  Shit!-uuuuhhey, why can’t I hear your thoughts?

“Um, I guess because we’re in your mind?”

This vastness, there’s so much vacant space…

“Oh, well, you know infinity.  There’s always more if you look.”

Huh, yeah, but you sound close, like in a cupboard.  I’ve been talking to myself, about you.  I keep almost thinking _her_ , right now.  And I feel like I’m leaning toward where I think I can feel you.  Ugh, Y/N, my brain needs a hug.

“Sam, can you try coming closer?”

Uh, yeah.  I think I am anyway, sorta.  Hey, where are you-?  Are you going somewhere?

“I am.  I want you to follow me.”

You’re um.  You’re right here, but I can’t reach-

“Open your eyes.”

“Oh.  Hey.”  Holy _fuck_.  

This is… not real.

“So, this is my dream, it seems.”  

 _I can see_ Y/N laying beside me, on her bed in her room.  She’s inches from my face, fresh and awake on a bright white pillow, and perfect.

It smells like her, like what I should’ve smelled on that first test yesterday.  And I can hear the sheets shift under me, I can hear the interior space around us. But it’s got a texture to it that kind of itches my eyes.

“Think something.”

“What? Holy shit I can hear my voice.”

She’s got my fingers and squeezes them as she grins. “Have a thought, about anything.”

Can I think about how much I’ve thought about being here before?  And what we’d do.  How sweet she looks-

“I can’t hear your thoughts anymore.”  She smiles and threads her fingers in mine.  I breathe deep, just to feel it cool my nose, and hear my lungs, and the life of it goes to my fingertips and crackles in the friction.  It’s rough and smooth all at once, every whorl and ridge scraping and sliding, the noise of it in my mind.

“Oh shit, Y/N,” I wrap my hands around hers and push her knuckles to my lips.  “I can feel this.”

I can talk.  I can smell her skin.  I can fucking feel my lips and hair and everything.  Deep breaths and shifting everything makes every part of me feel connected a bit more.  Y/N pulls my hand around her and shuffles closer, right up actually, and squeezes me.

“This is how we were this morning.”  She shucks up tight and hugs.  I can’t stop moving, little twists and tightenings.  “Don’t worry, Dean won’t wake me until he’s ready to try the fix again.”

“You don’t mind being this close to me?”  I’m asking this, knowing this happened last night, and it’s because I don’t quite believe it did.  Fucking presentism.

“It’s all I’ve wanted to do since you went under,” she says.  “Even when I wasn’t sure you could feel it.”

“It’s kind of hyperactive.”

“The sensations?” She drags her hands down my back, nuzzling my chin and dragging herself against the stubble.  The resistance and give is like a metaphor for life.

“Yeah.  Not just that my toes are further away than I thought, but my corners, where the skin is sensitive I guess, I’m all… long.”

She grins up at me, excited and happy.  It’s definitely a dream of some sort.  “Hey stand up with me.”  She leans up on her elbow and I guess my hesitation shows.  “Just do it, see how you go.”

She moves away and gets off the bed, smiling and offering her hand.  So I take it, and shift myself, and it’s _so easy_.  I practically float up, standing as tall as I can, and watch my hand open and close.

“Yeah, see?  Get it all connected again.”  She squeezes my fingers again, like she’s proud of me, then steps back a little, taking a deep breath while I look at the carpet and me on top of it.  “I’m sorry,” she says carefully, “about pushing you out of the chair.”

“Oh, that-” I feel my elbow without thinking, but nothing seems to hurt. Maybe dream-me doesn’t know if I’m injured or not. “That’s okay.  Just some tough love.”

“Yeah.  I knew you could take it,” she assures.  “I just, I kind of panicked a bit.  You looked like you were losing it and I thought… it’d either break the loop or give you something real to tantrum about.”

“Did it look upset?”

“Sam. You were punching yourself in the head.”

Right.  Forgot about that.  I smile awkwardly while she thinks of what to say next.  

“I guess you’ve been imagining what we’d be saying, what Dean would say, a lot of the time.  I know I have.  I um-”  Then she stops, and looks at me with worry.  “What is it?”

Suddenly I don’t want my body any more, not like this.  It’s hot and dizzy in my hands, light and loose in my chest, and I feel trapped all over again because I can’t not think this…

“Y/N… How do I know this is you?”

All the colours of the room shift harsh, shadows darkening, and the edges shimmer.  “Oh, Sam.”  She looks devastated.

But if I’m right… “It’s just… with things that are in my mind-”

“Yeah, no! Of course!”  She starts thinking.  “You want to be sure I’m not you, or an intruder.”  Straight to the end, goes our Y/N.  I nod a little, and she goes on.  “I um.  Shit, Sam, I’m not sure I can say anything to convince you.  Any secret is already in your head, anything new can’t be proven but _can_ be imagined.  And the I-know-you-know-I-know will just loop over on itself if that’s what you feel like thinking- if you _think_ that’s what you’re thinking.  Ugh.” 

My heart speeds up as she talks, saying exactly my thoughts, moments before they happen.  Exactly my fears.  I just hope it’s because she knows me, and not _because she is me_ , or someone who’s reading my mind.

“I, yeah.  I can see how you could fill in the gaps with something dodgy going on around you, something that you can’t see…”  She looks around, slowly realising there’s no evidence I can trust while we’re in her dream.  She ends up staring at me like her mind and heart are racing, quietly searching for the magic words to put me at ease. It exactly the face _I’d hope_ to see if Y/N truly cared for me. “Would you like to go back to your dream?” she offers, “Your mind?  Where it’s just you and me?”

Me and whom.

There’s darkness behind me now, fogging around the sides of my vision and Y/N can see it too.  She shifts her weight but holds her ground. I can’t seem to stop it from curling around the room.  Then it’s as though I’m retreating, away from her, and although I can’t take my eyes from her hesitant hand reaching out to me, she still follows me into my mind and away from her imaginings.

“I came into your dreaming Sam, I don’t think I can be cut loose.”

But there’s still some distance between us in this space.

“I’ll stay over here,” she assures.  “I wish you could hear my thoughts too.”

What would I hear?

“That I’d stay with you for the rest of it, if you want.  Just hang out, do lazy things, make up some good dreams as we go…  if you don’t trust me, though, that wouldn’t be- I shouldn’t stay, I mean.  But Sam, if you just want company, even company you don’t entirely trust, I’ll stay.”

You wanna stay, do you?  For a whole day of ‘lazy things’?  More roadtrip games?  Sleep?  

You wanna see what I dreamed last night?  Hang around and be a part of the next nightmare?  You going to join in or let me watch Lucifer put you go through something too?  ‘Cause that would be fucking perfect.   _The_ perfect fuck.

Of course you want to stay.  What will I be doing for you by the end of a day?  

Who will I think you are by then?

“Look, Sam- Sam, we’re going to have another go with the fix, after I leave.”  She feels closer - “Sam,” - and I’ll hold my ground out of pure hope, and anger.

How dare someone help themselves to my head.  

“You can fight it if you want.  If you think you can do another 24 hours, that’s fine.  I’ll be here and now Dean will too.  You know, he’ll look after you too. I mean, he’s still your big brother, so like he’ll take you for a drive in the Impala but he’ll probably also draw on your face.  It’ll be-”

Shut up.

I didn’t invite you.

I don’t nee-  Wha-   _What’s that?!_

“I don’t know.  I’m sorry!”  

I can _feel_ you panicking.

“Sam, you can fight if you want, but it’s _us_.  I promise you.  Please! We’re right here.  You’re safe and _with us._  We’ll-”

Am I _fucking choking?!_  Is that what you’re trying to do?  You’re going to _drown me while I dream?_

_**“Y/N??!”** _


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam finds some relief from the curse that’s kept him from seeing, hearing, tasting and touching for over a day.

_Back!_ Back, away, as far as I can get. I don’t goddamn care if there’s a step or shelves or what- AH! My hhhead!  Ohsssshit…  Shit.  Hang on…

Okay.  That’s. That’s a wall.  Fuck.  Something like.  Not fucking far enough.

 _“Thtay_ back!”

I can damn well _feel it,_ the _stuff_ , burning my throat where I choked, and salty, hot in my gut.  I know I’ve got my arms up, I know it’s useless.

“Whad- _whadju gib me?!”_ I’d cough it up but it’s working through me already, fuck ittt!!  “DEAN??!” He’s gotta be nearby.  But what’s he gonna to do?  I can’t help shifting, sliding sideways, like I can get away from myself, feeling along the floor but God! Fuck, this _heat_ , it’s burning to my edges and, fuck, I’m in a corner now.  If I can just keep my hands ready, and wait…   “Thtay back!”  Fucking makes everything push and curl, and it _stings_ … in my toes.

My toes are hot.

No, cold.  My toes are hot; they _feel_ the cold.

And now the cool air between my toes.

“Don’ move.”  I can feel my fingers brush over the hairy knuckles.

It’s working.

“ _Don’_ move.”  Both feet, the bridges, the arches, dry and smooth.

I’ve got my two feet.  What the fuck do I do with these?! They’re not even attached!  But the tickle creeps up my calves and I grab ankle bones, shins, squeeze tight, start massaging up the muscles.  It’s like sitting in a bath as it fills with warm water…

“MM!hmm” A hand on each foot, small and clammy, and they drag-drag-drag like before-  “I’m sowry, Y/N-” Ugh, hell, before I can even decide I just know.  “I’m sowry,” but she pats my foot so softly, I let it go for a moment to just breathe through getting my body back.

Slowly the sensation creeps up my legs.  Strange things like fabric on hair and her breath on my shins stand out to me, and I tell Y/N ”Here” where it’s new, as I become sure.  I rub my knees as they resurface, talking like I can hear already.  “It warm an’ cold all at onet’.  An’ I feeyl big…. It faster dan before, I t’ink.”

The feeling comes back, blooming up my groin, my waist and back, bringing heaviness.  It’s strange how the feeling coming back up my chest, it seems kind of useless, not that remarkable, until Y/N puts her hand over my heart and I can manage myself enough to hold it there, waiting as the skin of my armpits lights up.  It crawls over my shoulders, past my elbows, making me shiver all over.  I’m so fucking ready to feel my head again.

Under my chin and behind my ears, then I hear her “-bout now?”

 _“Yeah,”_ I say, hard with exhilaration.

“Hi, hey, how you doing?” She sounds happy.  She sounds like the fucking sun.

“Hmm,” I swallow, my throat and tongue coming back to me, and I grunt a bit at the discomfort in my lips - I must’ve bitten myself a few times - “Ugh, dat’s uh-” I work the muscles a little.  Everything feels dense with inactivity, and Y/N’s laughing at what I’m discovering.  “God, could you even understand me?”

“Yeah, I got you.”

Over my scalp it slides, like water again, like my hair’s being blown up, and I can taste morning breath and feel the space of my mouth, my fuzzy teeth and tastebuds, and hear my voice, and just as the warmth comes back to my palms the picture of the room fills from the outside in.  The warm tones of the library, the chairs and floor, the mattress over there and Dean standing this side of it. Then Y/N’s knees, her shoulders, and even though I’m squinting at the brightness, she comes into focus just as my fingertips curl around hers.

“Hey,” she says.  “How you doing?”

“I’m better.”  I tongue at the tender lumps in my lips.   “Did you do this?”

“Ha! No,” she smiles.  “I don’t bite that hard.”

Dean comes over to crouch beside Y/N and takes a hold of my forearm.  “How you feel?”

He looks worse than me, surely.  “Tired, and sore, but I’m all good.  All back.”

“Okay,” he nods, and thinks for a minute.  “Sorry about force-feeding you there.  Y/N got upset,” he says, glancing at her grimly, “and then you started growling, or something, so I just-”

“No, I get it.”  Man, that woulda looked rough.  “Thanks.  Thank you for doing that.”

Y/N hasn’t stopped watching me, hasn’t let go.  I’m not sure what to tell her about all that.

“You need to talk at all?” he checks.

“Uh, not- not right now.”

“Alright, well,” Dean takes a big sucking breath and wipes his hand over his face.  “I haven’t slept and I smell like you, so I’m out for a day or so.  Take it easy, okay? Good to have you back.” He pats my shoulder, gives it a good squeeze and heads off.  Feels nice.

Y/N’s looks morning stale and tired, and I notice the red shine on her cheekbone.  When I reach for it I’m both amazed and dismayed at its heat and tightness.  She does a little shake of the head, closing her eyes to blow off my concern.

“Did you ice that?”

She taps my leg once, really firmly, then adds, “No not yet.”

“Have you been hitting me that hard the whole time?”  

She laughs, “Yes! I tried to move it around! Are you sore?”

Yeah I’m sore everywhere, but not because of her.  “You look different.”

She puts her palm on the side of my face.  “Well, I’m looking at you differently,” she says, “if that’s okay.”

Oh God, it’s nice to feel that, that rough sound of her skin over my ear and the drag of fingers in my hair.

“Can I come closer?” she asks, and I nod, helping her over, wrapping my arms around her as she sits sideways in my lap and hugs my shoulders.  She seems bigger, but lighter, rough and everywhere, and I hope she won’t mind me nuzzling into her.  Here I can press my face, my brow and the bridge of my nose, into the curve where her shoulder meets her neck, wrapping her smell and soft skin around me.  For long moments she lets me hold her and she hugs me too, patting my back and stroking my head till I’ve had my fill of real contact.  

It feels like where I dreamed of being the whole time.

“Let me get you back to the bathroom,” she says.  “You wanna walk or roll?”

“Holy crap, _walk_.”

She helps me up, bracing everything and waiting till I’m balanced.  I’m heavy but Jesus it’s the difference between a water bed and a futon, jellyfish and crab, radio and books.  I have _feedback_.  I take up space.  I can move something.  It’s easier than I thought it would be.  “I’m fine,” I assure her.  “Really, I feel able.”

“Okay then.”  She still walks with her arm around my waist, teetering all the way back to the bathroom.  

My skin doesn’t have the flaring sensitivity it had in the dream.  Everything works, it’s present, but sort of mundane.  Just like it was before.  But it’s the hearing that’s got me feeling strange - all these incidental sounds that change as I move, things I can’t see, footfalls bouncing off walls behind me.  I think… I think it’s the way it shows me space, and how far away things are.

She walks us into the bathroom and puts a hand on my waist while she’s still close, asking “You okay?  Anything freaking you out?”

“Nothing I won’t get used to.”  I smile and pretend she’s the only other thing here for a moment.

“You run the water, I’ll get you some clothes.” She’s gone again before I can think of any other idea.

I use the toilet and brush my furry teeth before starting the bath.  

The water in the tub is torrential, blasting loud and present and for a while I get lost staring at it.  Those little events going by, moments of randomness sort of witnessed by someone, but no more consequential because of it.  It’s violence in my ears and life beating my fingers, all things that might have happened if I was still cursed, but I’m here, hand propped on the far edge and leaning over the tub, still zoned out when she comes back.

“Hey um,” I start, then I’m distracted by her height and colour in the fluorescence, the kind of corporeality of her, and my depth perception, particularly the shadow under her chin…  I don’t really feel like being alone.  “It’s a big bath…”

“Oh is it?” she says, smiling shyly as she gets my idea.  “You mind if I add some more bubbles then?”

I grab the bath gel and hold it high, squeezing a great, long glob under the spray.  Bubbles begin to tower under the tap and she rolls her eyes as I look at her hopefully; there are going to be a _lot_ of bubbles.

“I can leave my shorts on, if you want,” I offer.

“Nah, nothin’ I haven’t seen before,” she winks.  “But you should get in, soak it up.”

I really am high, exhilarated on having her here, being able to see her when I thought it would be a long day away, so I pull off my top and pants without checking to see if she’s turned away, and climb in.

“Oooooh yes… holy fuck yes, that’s hhhhhhhawesome.” The hot sting is amazing, a glorious, enveloping liquid heat that I can feel right through, and for a few moments it consumes all my senses.  

Once she’s happy that I’m settled and not going to slip under, she crosses her arms and takes hold of her shirt hem, pausing for a second.

“You want me to close my eyes?” I ask.

She looks at me for a long while then; maybe it’s too much too soon.  

“Seems rather cruel, after everything,” she says.  Her smile is soft, still shy.  

So I don’t turn away but she doesn’t put on a show either, pulling off her top and her pants without pausing, half turned to drop them out of the way, then undoing her bra and, I’ll be honest, that kind of distracted me from the panties coming off.  The whole scene really, is so intimate that I sort of avert my gaze while she gets into the tub, and the mountains of bubbles hide things real soon.  She gasps “Hooofuck!” as she lowers herself.  “Fuck, that’s so hot! I’m gonna pass out!”

Under the water I feel her legs slide down the outside of my right leg and I catch her in my hand, hug her feet to my thigh.

“So what hurts the most?” she asks.

“Uh, my mouth really.”  I lick at the lumps again, the good part of my tongue noticing a split this time.  “And just being sore from tension.”

“Turn around,” she says, “I’ll rub your back.”

That’s um.  That feels like a bit of a big deal.  I shouldn’t want to.  I mean, I know she kissed me, and we’re currently sharing a bath, but-

“Come on, nurse’s instructions.” She holds up the soap and smiles. “It’ll be easier to tell you about it when we’re not facing each other anyway.”

Huh, yeah, that’s a point.  “Okay.  Nurse’s instructions.”

I move forward and swivel around, the squeak under the water practically farting - so not graceful - and I decide I’m not going to do anything unless she tells me to.  I will do everything she tells me to.  I will be patient.

Her legs press against the tub walls either side of me, knees by my ribs, and I push the bubbles away so I can sit up without looking like I’m poking through the clouds.  Y/N rubs the soap over my shoulders some and rolls it in her hands before putting it aside, then smears it over my skin and suddenly I’m full of regret.

“Oh no,” I groan, starting to rock back and get under her hands.  “No I don’t wanna hafta hold myself up for this.  I wanna lie down.”  I arrange myself so I can lean on my knees and let her do whatever.

“You will,” she says, “later,” and starts squeezing my shoulders, down my arms.  It’s just what I need.  She’s strong but at this angle I guess it’s hard for her to get any real pressure on my muscles.  Sometimes it feels like just her hands on my skin, but that’s enough and it’s lovely.  Doesn’t keep my mind from wandering though, worrying about everything I’ve done.  “I’m sorry if it was scary for you.”

“More worrying than scary,” she says.  “I have a lot of faith in you, to be okay in the end.  Or to let me help you with that.”

She does.  And I’ve always felt it.

I want to ask if I laughed out loud, if I talked to myself, if she got angry, everything.  But it all seems a waste of time.  Maybe though, later, after a day or so, I might ask if she can tell me her side.  Maybe I can fill out the memory a bit.  Right now, I just want to have this and feel time pass the way it did before.

Perfectly, after I’ve lost track of the minute but before I’ve gotten cool, she says, “I can’t do that good a job like this.  Lay back, I’ll do your hair.”

She tucks her feet down the bottom of my back and slide forward, bending my knees up when my feet hit the end of the bath.  With her knees in my back she lowers me down, guiding my head into the water and it’s still so hot but so, _so_ nice.

Soooo much perception.  Oh God, the squeak of her fingers through my hair, dragging up my scalp, up my neck, and, oh Christ, the massaging.  “Fuck I’m glad you understood me before coz Immabout to be a drooling mess.”  She drags her fingers from hairline to crown to temples and back, over and over, circles and stripes. My jaw, my tongue, eyebrows, everything goes slack.  She shifts back so her knees are under my neck and I don’t have to hold my head up.  It’s heaven.

Since we’ve moved into the bunker, I‘ve noticed how routine things have become.  It used to be that we’d finish a hunt, leave, find somewhere to stay and clean up well enough.  That cycle was easier when we were younger and transient.  Now it feels like the distance is the first step, and getting home is the finish line, and that the cleaning up has become cleansing.  I hate washing off the blood, especially when it shouldn’t have been lost, but when there has been loss but I’ve got no blood on me… I still scrub.  To wash away the grief.

“Feels so good, Y/N.  I think the word is sublime.”  It might be arrogant, but maybe letting Y/N care for me while I can say thank you, and show it’s good, and that she’s getting it so right, maybe that’s might be cleansing for her this time too.  Maybe the gratitude will cleanse us both, and get this behind us sooner.  

She lifts my head out of the water and bends back to get something, so I sit up properly, awaiting instruction, before her hand is on my ribs and she’s saying, “Scootch back a little?”

She drags her hands over my head, spreading around some shampoo.  I don’t know if it’s mine, it doesn’t matter, it’s just nice.  Then I realise, from the shape of her, that she’s sitting up too, to reach me, and I start to become very aware that she really is naked behind me, probably out of the water a little.  I double check that the bubbles in front of me are thick.

This time when she leads me back and down, between her legs, it’s with her palm on my forehead and her hand between my shoulders.  I hold onto the rim of the tub while she cradles my neck and swishes water to rinse away the suds, brushing it all clear.  I close my eyes and change my hold, spreading my hands on her shins, her thighs under my arms.

Then she holds my upper arms and slides down beneath me, pushing her chest up under me and pressing down on mine as she moves back up again, taking me with her so that my head rests on her shoulder.  It’s hard to find a good spot on her collar bone, but I don’t really care about that, or the cooling water on my chest.  She’s flush against me beneath the water, all skin, soft and shapely, and her legs are over mine now, hooked over my hips and resting on my legs.  When she wraps her arms around me I let my shoulder tuck under one and we fit together better.  I’m trying very hard, and badly, to not think of the hair that brushes against my lower back.

“This is nice.”  Which is lame, and an understatement.

Y/N puts her lips to my temple and kisses me, and I close my eyes to feel each thing, my waist against her inner thigh, the heat we’re sharing, her breath cooling over my cheek and ear.

“Watching you alone, in your head, was exactly as awful as the witch thought it would be.  I couldn’t keep you on happy thoughts, I couldn’t be sure you were okay,” she says quietly. “That’s why I took the dream root.”

I nudge my brow into her a bit.  I can imagine how hard that would’ve been.  “I’m sorry that went off the rails like that.”

“I wish I’d waited for the next attempt.  It only took an hour-”

“That was an hour?”

“Yep,” she says, “and we could’ve skipped an anxiety attack if I’d been patient and remembered you could be too.  Could’ve let Dean race you around the halls for a while instead.”

That would’ve been interesting.

“When I started planning what we’d talk about, or do, when I visited, everything started with a kiss.  And when I found you, in the dark…  I couldn’t even reach you.”

As soon as I look up at her she leads me into it, her hand on my jaw, eyes on my cheek where she means to kiss, but I don’t care about blood blisters or split skin, I kiss her- “No, that’s gotta hurt,” she says.

“Not enough.”  There’s a better position than this, and easily enough room between her waist and the curve of the tub. I sit up some, letting the bubbles clear when the water sloshes everywhere, so I can loop my arm under her, twisting between her legs so I can reach her better.

She wraps her arm around my neck and lets me kiss her, waits without pressing to protect my lips but if I open my mouth enough I can taste her tongue, drag the roughness over hers and when she hums, just a short thing, I pull her tight against me, right up against my ribs and waist, her pubic bone hard over my hip and her legs wrapping long, pushing and dragging over my dick.  I hum back, because although the last day was torture, God knows that part of me’s been desperate for her for months.  So I grunt a bit and pretend I’m just adjusting myself against the tub when I move for that sweet feeling again.  She catches on, shifts her thigh just a little, up and down, and I have to suck my teeth, pull the breath over my lip to keep myself still.

She reaches down though, hooks her hand on my waist and pulls, so I give up not searching for it, just rut towards her, and she snaps her head back, thunking in on the tub with a gasp.  “Oh fuck, your hip!”

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” she sighs, high and tight.  “I can’t- mmm.”  Holy crap, her cheeks are all rosy, lips fat. I’ve never seen her look like that. “We can’t do anything here.”

Y/N licks her lips and bites them, runs her teeth across the lower while she opens her eyes and looks at me.  “Can we get out?”

“Sure.”  To be honest, I’m stuck watching her like this, so it takes me a few seconds, until after she’s smiled a little, to offer.  “I’ll go first?”

“Yeah,” she smiles again.

Slowly I untangle myself from around her, all squeaks and waves and awkward manoeuvres.  She slides back to where she was, her nose trained on mine, and I look at where the water’s dried on her hot cheeks, the edges of her damp hair, while she bites her lips together and lets me climb out.

Towelling isn’t easy with a hard on, but thank goodness she brought enough towels so I can get my hair sort of dry while keeping myself covered.  We leave the clothes in a pile and she leads me out, a fist on the tuck of her towel, her other hand in mine.

“Where are we going?”

Y/N smiles knowingly, saying “Well, your mattress is still in the library so…”

“Oh, so library it is!”

“Ha!  Yeah!  We should totally go canoodle in the library!  Dean can deal.”  She grins and threads her fingers between mine.  

I lift my hand up and over her head, moving behind her as we walk so I can get her inside my arms and teeter the rest of the way to her room.  “Do you really know the meaning of canoodling?”

“I think I know better than to throw around terms I don’t understand when I’m with you,” she smirks.

“Do you?” I’m still suspicious.

“You think I don’t have a canoe in my room?”

We’re just about at her door, and I hug her close, talking low to her ear.  “I don’t remember a canoe, no.”

She scrunches her shoulder up, clearing her throat as she opens the door.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says, “just tickles.”

There is a spread of goosebumps on her neck, over her shoulder and I lean down to kiss them and press my cheek against her neck, trying to warm her up and she curls up into my chest and arms, all soft and fresh.

“You don’t have to kiss me if it hurts,” she says, tilting her head to see me.  “But the scruff is nice.”

“The scruff?”  Doesn’t feel anything to me - it usually itches.  I’m betting the cuts on my lips feel rough for her, though; they don’t hurt that much to me.

“Yeah, it tickles,” she says, like it’s a confession, and turns to put her hands on my shoulder and neck.  “And with your breath, or voice, it’s a nice substitute.” Her fingers are in my hair again and I’m pulling on the sway of her back.  I don’t feel cold at all.  “It’s um.  I’ve thought of it.”

“Since when?”

“Since uh, you remember when we had to camp out for that Rakshasa?”

“Yeah, that was like, your third hunt with us.”  That was over a year ago, and I remember catching the tail end of a glance from her.  Maybe I wasn’t imagining things.

“Mm-hmm, well,” she shrugs her shoulders, biting her lips together, “that was the first time you really distracted me.”

Holy. Shit.  “You um… you been distracted much since?”

“Barely been able to focus,” she smirks.

It makes me grin, splitting a cut on my lip and she winces, brushing her thumb beside my mouth.  “Let me put something on that.”  

I just stare at her, her getting lip balm from her things, smoothing it on as kindly as she can, doing kind things to me and being so close.  Maybe it’s my eyes adjusting, but she glows like the dream.  When she comes back and tucks herself against me, runs her hands over my skin, I keep staring.

“Is this too much too soon?” she asks.  “I mean, I’ve kissed you in the dark, then we bathed together - just say if you want to slow down.”

“I just want to feel you, everything, to be honest.  I don’t know how fast you were thinking.  I’m okay with pjs and rest but if…” Eeeer I should probably keep those ideas to myself.  “We can do whatever you’re comfortable with.”

Y/N stands on the bed and it sinks enough that her chin is just above my eyes when I step up against it.  I’ve been so focused on her I don’t even remember walking into the room.  She takes my fingers, puts my hands on her back, over the towel, and tilts my face up to hers.  “I want you to feel everything too.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because you're Sam's happy place.

Her kiss is so gentle it makes my lips feel _better_.  It’s a featherlight, whispering sweetness, making my arms slide around her and pull her tight. She holds my head in both hands and scrunches her shoulders, like she can show me affection in everything but the pressure of her kiss, and the tuck of her towel slackens.

“You want me to get the light?” Her voice is crisp so close, like there’s nothing else to hear, eyelashes flicking up to look at me.  I don’t think she’s trying to be seductive but it’s just like anything I’ve ever wanted, what I would’ve dreamed of if I could.

“No thanks. I wanna see, too.”

“Oh I look so tired Sam,” she sighs, forever shy. “Can we use just the lamp?”

“ _And_ the lamp.”  I slide my palms down her thighs and around the back of her legs, watching to see if she minds me feeling her there, then up under the towel, towards the rise of her butt.  She keeps looking at me, looking around my face, and seems okay with it when she leans into me, so I go further, getting a handful of healthy ass into each palm and feeling the muscle and fat under my fingers.  She digs her fingers into me too, up the back of my head and down my back as her arm reaches over my shoulder from her height.  “Can I take your towel off, so I can see if I need to get more lights?”

She smirks.  “Pretty sure my nocturnal ass is plenty reflective.”

With my chin I nuzzle into her chest, pushing the towel aside where it’s tucked in.  The fabric lets itself go and falls away inside my arms, so I pull it down, throw it aside, and drag my reach up and down the back of her, shoulders to knees, getting everything I can of that unique texture.  Y/N just leans and holds, humming when I rub my cheek against her breast.  I’m not diving right in just yet - the view is good enough - but nosing around the softness makes her breathe heavier, makes her press her fingertips into me, so I duck under her breast and let it slide over my cheek, dragging my nose along the crease of the underside.  The light and shadows are warm, and she sighs my name so softly my ears don’t even feel it.  I can’t believe I’m here.

I taste and nudge, kind of pausing on each movement as if I were kissing.  It’s enough for now I think, with my scratchy lips.  Then I look up at her, her nipple right in my line of sight, I can’t not- I mean, she’s _right there_.  I don’t need to open my mouth that wide to take it in, and I think the limit of my abilities at the moment actually isn’t working against me.  She sighs and pushes her fingers up my scalp, sucks her breath in when I lick light and slow, and seems to be listening with her skin as closely as I am.

“Sam. That’s- hang on.”

I know I have wanted this, I’ve dreamed about her sighing my name and being all flushed but it was never quite so perfect as this.  “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.  I just-”  She thumbs over my cheek, smiling beautifully.  “I want to do something for you.”

Now I don’t wanna assume, but- okay, removing my towel is a fairly clear sign.

Oh fuck- _that_.  That’s a damn clear sign, when she’s dragging her fingers up my dick, all loose and soft.  I can’t keep my eyes open.

She leans her lips against my ear and whispers “Lay down for me.”  I don’t suppose we’re up to requests yet but I’d love for her to just keep doing this for a while - her breath on my ear, lips on my neck, and that sweet steady pull and drag. I can feel it all the way down between my legs.

She kisses under my earlobe, tongues a little, letting her breath cool the wetness, and keeps talking while her hands move lazily.  “Lay down for me, Sam.  I want you to feel my mouth,” she says, letting her lips catch and the consonants tickle.  “Let me see what you taste like.”   Hmmmmm, fuck, I lean into that.  Wish I could rub that feeling into my head.

With my hold on her shoulders I push her away enough that she can’t really reach me any more.  I’ve got something I want to do first, and she seems to get my hint as I lead her to lay down.

By the time she’s got her head on the pillow, I have my hands either side of her hips.  She runs her fingers up and down my forearms and lets me look.  “Definitely leaving the lights on,” I tell her, and when I look down to check where my knees should go, she shifts her legs outside mine, letting me settle between them.

The soft stubble on her calves is sweet, reminds me of how busy she’s been, and I lean over to nuzzle her inner thigh, keeping it light, letting my brow and cheek drag along her skin.  I take my time, enjoying the view and the feel, the smell too when I get to where she’s still damp from the bath.  Gently I ask with my hands if she can give me more room, let me see.  It’s so freaking hard to keep from kissing, licking even, so I focus on how I can tickle her, tangle her short hair in my whiskers a bit.  At one point I lose my balance a little, dragging hard along her inner thigh and she groans, a noise that lasts longer than it should.  So on the other side I drag too and she pushes against me, moaning again and sighing “Sam,” when her fingers get in my hair.  The skin has a blush to it now, from the roughness.

“More, Sam.” When I look up at her she tucks her hips up, a little scoop, right in front of me.

“Here?” I lean down, my nose right over the crease of her, and she nods, licking her lower lip in for a bite.

I push my chin against her, feel wetness work into my short beard, and drag myself upwards, over her pubic bone, letting her lips be pushed apart and the stubble drag over where I know she’s most sensitive, “-nnng _aha!_ Oh _God_ Sam!” - and I keep moving up until I can rub my nose into her belly.

“Okay?”

“Oh fuck!  Yes!  Again?”  She’s curling back into the pillow, eyes shut, fisting the blankets.

“You sure?”

“Just once more.”  So I do, a little softer, letting my tender tongue reach out and holy shit, she tastes exactly how I expected - sweet, like her, and the only flavour I really craved.  She puffs and sighs, chest heaving, and when I look down she seems pink everywhere.

“Let me,” she sighs.  “Come on, sit up here.”

Quick and smooth she moves aside and pats the pillow, sitting on her feet while she waits for me to get into place and lean against the headboard.

Watching her crawl over my thigh and kneel between my knees while she’s naked, her lap blushing from my face, it makes my mouth dry.  She leans on her knuckles and I can’t help reaching out to feel the heavy curve of her breast.  The way she arches her back for it is encouraging, and two hands only encourages her more.

Y/N leans a hand on my thigh and whispers against my other ear, dragging knuckles up the underside of my cock again.  “Relax okay?” She kisses down my neck, licks and nibbles along my shoulder, light enough to make me shudder.  “Let your mind go blank for a good reason.”

Across my chest and down my stomach, she kisses and tastes, flicking my skin with her eyelashes, dragging her nose back and forth.  It’s wonderful, sweet, and I brush her hair back so I can see her do it.

When she gets to the dip of my hip she seems far away again, those distances still a bit surreal with all the well-lit proportions.  She’s both larger than life and all the way down there, but it all slips into unimportance when her breath hits my balls and she digs her fingers into my waist.

“Hooh fuck, Y/N.”  That’s her tongue, Y/N’s tongue licking up my cock, and her lips hot over the tip.  Holy crap, she’s so warm.  And wet, slippery.  Shit, it feels like I’m growing just so there’s more of me to feel her.  

Man, it’s been awhile since I’ve felt this and- oooooh fuck.  So long since it was somewhere familiar, and safe.  Where I can relax… she is so warm and…  Jesus, that’s… articulate.

Oh God, she keeps doing this lip-nibbling thing around the rim of the head, and taking me in, flicking her tongue.  “M-mm, that’s-” Shit, warm fingers on my balls.  Hoh… it’s like she’s got my neck in her hands.  “That’s really nice.”  Then she gets her elbow low, so she can press her palm behind my balls and wrap her fingers around under them, almost around my cock too, ringing the base.  She puts her other hand over the top, so they’re kind of encased in heat and pressure, this undulating compression that’s just the-  the perfect-  “Sssshit! Y/N?!”  That’s gotta- oh fuck, that’s gotta be all she can take!  Fuck!   _“Y/N?!”_  Fuck- she’s- ohfuckit’stight. And _DEeep!_  Fuckit!  S’too good!  “Okay!   _Please?!”_

“You wanna come inside me?”

“Yeah, yes, please.”  Oh fuck, I don’t know how I held that off.  Jesus.

The moment Y/N’s in reach I haul her up and slide myself down, dragging her up my body.  She lets her knees slide over my thighs and outside my hips, kissing my cheek.  She’s radiating heat, singeing hot on my legs and I help myself to her breasts, cupping and kneading and watching it happen while I push my forehead into the curve of her neck.  She slides forward, dragging her groin over my cock, sliding the hard wetness of her bone.  It’s an amazing pressure that makes me rut for more.

She ducks under my jaw and kisses hard, as though she could kiss my lips from inside, reaching down to tilt me up and guide me into where she’s burning.  It’s easy, she just takes me in like that’s my place, and lands on my hips, groaning and grinding as she sits tall.  I look down at us, where I can’t see myself because I’m _in_ her, and follow the shapes of her all the way to her long neck and bitten lips, back down to her dragging fingertips.  It’s a long way, all that skin, and it’s so easy to watch her on top of me, eyes closed, undulating and sexy, so fucking sexy, with me inside her.  I could watch this for hours.

I tilt a bit and she pulls on my waist, opening her eyes and smiling slack and shiny.  “Let me Sam.”  That voice, I’ve never heard that timbre.  “Nurse’s instructions.”

She walks her hands onto my chest to tip forward, and starts to fuck herself on me. I hold her hips and let them do whatever she wants because I wouldn’t change a damn thing.  I can almost taste how good it feels - the juice is something special, thicker than water, smoother than blood - all her heat and life in my hands, the health of her cushing soft between my fingers and her _sounds_. God, little sighs, the shortest sound on each breath and if I push up into her a bit - “Aah!” - it just falls over her tongue.  I want everything I’ve missed.  I want her noises, I want to feel her here, and feel myself make a difference.

Holding her up a little, I dig my heels in and start to give back.  Every beat is worth it, and she gets louder, louder than she needs to be, saying “Ah! God! _Sam!_ Fuck!”  She pushes the heels of her hands into my shoulders, wraps her fingers over them and holds on tight, giving up on words to focus on what I’m doing.

Oh man, the friction of it’s enough, back and forth, heat and drag, every thrust thrills up my back and across my gut.  It would only be a matter of time, or will, but she reaches down and starts rubbing, stroking herself, and it makes her tremor around me. I can’t- I can’t keep it-  “Fuck!  Y/N!”

She sounds desperate when she peaks, and it’s as though I can hear it inside me, the whole shudder of her, dropping down, fucking down, and I push as hard and deep as I can to feel it when I come, her quivering squeeze milking me right back to my ass.  Nothing’s felt more right, or more natural, and I tug on her elbow to bend her arm, getting her lips on mine to kiss her and hold her close.  Every breath aches, everything feels ecstatic.  She’s right where I want her and I couldn’t ask for anything more.

“Sam!” She’s got my head in her hands, letting me kiss her like my life depends on it.  “Jesus Christ!”

“Yeah, God, I wish I could get you closer.”  She laughs through her puffing, hums happily when I wrap my arms around her and hug her hard, nuzzling my hips up into hers.  We kiss and rest, and when things seem to stop trembling I brush my hands down her hair, shoulders, back and ass, and kiss as much as we like, smiling and humming.

“You feel better.”  She says it like it’s an observation.

“Yes I do.  Thank you nurse.”

Giggles and nose rubs.  The best.  She giggles more, like the nose rubs are funny, and replays it over for me.

“I am so goddamned lucky to have you, Y/N.”

“Yes you are,” she says.  “I’m lucky to have you too, Sam.”

It’s so quiet now, like everything else is at rest.  I guess it might be nighttime.  I wonder if I could convince her to sleep here, laying on me.  She doesn’t feel too heavy, just a wonderful _here_ sort of feeling, cuddling into my arms, and so smooth.  

Slowly she lifts her head and smiles at me, letting me pull her down for another kiss, a short nuzzle before she climbs off.  She sits on the edge of the bed and pulls on a shirt of mine from somewhere, does up a few buttons.  She waits for me to get under the blankets and arrange them over my lap, then smiles, as though I know she’s going to ask; “So. What now?”

“I could go for some more sleep, if you wanna stay here.”  I’m a bit restless but just laying down together, indefinitely, feels like a good idea right now.

“I know you could, but you should get back.”  She says it kindly, but…

I’m resting, right? I can rest if I want.  “Now? What’s wrong with staying here?”

“For how long?”  She’s just sitting there, talking to me over her shoulder.  Not that I want to chat with her nose to nose, but… something’s different.

I’m different. “I dunno, for as long as we like.”

She turns to face me better, pulls her knee up onto the mattress and keeps talking with this odd stillness, a kind of… timeless patience.  “If you don’t go back, it won’t be Y/N putting a bullet in your fucking helmet, Sam. It’ll be Dean.”

Nothing changes.  

Not the sterile space, not the dull silence, and not the too-even brightness.  It’s just as thin, depthless and blank as it was before.  But I can see it better now.

I didn’t tell Y/N about my dream.

“It was a nightmare, Sam, and I know it because I’m not Y/N, I’m you.”

Son of a bitch.

I’m still dreaming.  

I’m still dreaming and in here Y/N is… a part of me.  My subconscious?  Or Y/N represents my unconscious mind?

“Well, it’s your mind and you clearly have some sort of awareness of it, so; no.”  It’s like I’ve put Y/N’s face and voice to an automated thing - a sentient car, or the bunker, an organic spaceship. Did I seriously make up a whole-?

“Your faculties are at rest.  Not your brain.”

“Will I remember this?  Wait.  When does it count as conscious thought?”

“Mmm, hard to say.  Worry about it later.”

Y/N, or ‘my idea of Y/N’, goes back to buttoning buttons I’m sure she’s already buttoned.  Which is like some sort of continuity error or something.  I look at the walls and start to feel the immense void on the other side, above and below.  I’m in a fucking construct.  I wish I could tell which part of my brain I’m dealing with.

“There are no parts of your brain.  I _am_ your brain.  Just like you!” She stops buttoning and looks at me, waiting happily, because she was only buttoning to give me time to adjust. _I_ was giving me time to adjust.

Uuuuh… it’s.  This is just peculiar, to be honest.  It’s like one of my eyes is looking at the other.

“Gro-ho-ho-hoss,” she shudders.  And she…  Should I even bother with this part? The third person stuff?

“Don’t look at me like that.  You really wanna cook your noodle, try this: I have an internal monologue too…  Y/N smiles at Sam like she just pulled a pie from the oven. Ta-daa!”

“Yeah, um no. Self-commentary is just… jumping the shark.  So, what, a person in my dreams can talk to themselves in their head and I can’t hear it?”

“Yup, it’s just brains, all the way down.”

“Right. So… this is my happy place?”

Y/N nods and smiles as I keep commentating what she does, even when she looks at me like I’m simple. “Shut up, it’s grounding.”

“What?! I like it!” she shrugs, still grinning.  “Gives me a sense of self.”

“I should be hitting myself in the head with a pillow, huh?”

“Yuhuh!” she grins.  “I’m funnier in real life.  Look, here’s what you’ve forgotten.  Escapism gives you time to heal, a way to pass the time you _can’t_ escape.  Dean has good ideas but Die Hard can only get you so far.”

Holy crap.  The second cure didn’t actually work, _at all._

I remember calling for her and I remember kind of scuttling back, groping for something, hitting my head against the wall and… it was like an option.  I chose rest.

“Also, in other things from which you might be distracted: This has been here the whole time, it’s just that you had to go a level deeper, so if you choose this, or relax into it, it’s pretty risky.”

For a moment she seems like part of the furniture, kind of fickle or illusionary.

“Stick with talking as though I’m here, like I’m someone else.  Or you might end up having fucked yourself in the head, so to speak.”

Y/N is my happy place.  “Alright.  Well, I guess, I should ask you to come over here please, feel real for me.”

Yeah, Y/N crawling over her bed is nice.  Watching her sit on my thighs is- yeah, heaviness. In my hands. That’s good.  Those perfect lips, exactly the smell and feel.  I hope she looks at me like this for real one day.

Damn it, if I’d trusted her when she used the dream root, I might’ve had that. We could’ve used this time, dreamed together, gone and done vacation things, the three of us at the beach, or something.

“You mean, like a _trip?”_ My Y/N grins at me, and I laugh with her. It’s ridiculous, but yeah, that was an option. I could’ve had her with me, for a kind of real…

Her body fits against mine, so sweet while she lays on me, and I can run my palms from her hair to her hip, curves that fit my hand.  “I don’t even know if I can wake up,” I say.  It’s so easy to watch her over me, the breath and sounds that bounce off her neck and chest, all timeless intimacy.  Even the sight of her is warm.  So real in so many ways.  And when she smiles at me, there’s a sunniness that - as soon as I see it, and _want_ it - she shines more.  It’s like a self-fed, endless loop of sugar.

How am I going to get myself out of this one?

Her tone is seductive, but what she says is all caution.  “I know opting out and settling in for some Jedi-level masturbation sounds pretty sweet, but think, Sam.  What if self-awareness here is a sign of strength up there.  Maybe you can see me better because your eyes are actually working.”

Fuck.

She nuzzles me, lets her eyelashes flick over my brow and cheek, and drags her hands down my neck, murmuring “We could have this for real, Sam.”  Fingers along my ribs and inside my upper arms, places I’ve never felt her before and haven’t really yet.  Then she slides her touch down my chest, right down over my belly button and through the trail of hair until her fingernails scrape through the curls- “You know it feels better than this.”

Hooo crap.  I am very, _very_ _good_ at tempting myself.

Shit.   _How_ do I wake up?  How do I get back?

“Lay down for me. Like they would have you.  Nurse’s instructions.”  I slide down and watch her crawl off, settling beside me as if Y/N will take her place in reality.  She holds my hand and comes in close, saying “Listen for a voice,” all life-like and ideal…

“It’s so hard out there.”  Soothing fingers on my brow and cheek, tracing my features.  This is so nice. I can’t help thinking it aloud. “Couldn’t we stay for another hour or so?”

“You’d get bored with yourself.”  Even Inner-Construct Y/N gets there a moment before me.  “You’d miss them too much.  And you’d feel the lie.”

I really do know what’s best for me. “Yeah.  Tell me to wake up Y/N.  Give me something to come to.”

She smiles and I say, to both of us, “Dean would never have shot me.”

“Of course not.” That’s the smile I want, gentle and close and lovely. I so want that. “He’d have found a way to get to you, and bring you back.  So come on, you gotta try.” She presses her cheek against mine with a soothing nudge. “Focus on this voice.  You love this voice.  Wake up…  Wake up, Sam… Y/N wants you to wake up…”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam wakes from the curse and you're right where he hoped you'd be.

“I’m gonna try again… ”  That’s not Y/N.  “Sam?” Dean. “…Sammy. Hey, come back, man.” He sounds worried, but ages away.   _“Sam!”_

“Sam.” Oh, _that’s_ Y/N, so close.  Inside my head.  Right where she was.  “Please wake up.  We miss you.  We want you back.”

Opening my eyes is easy.  No blinking or squinting.  It’s as though they’re still awake from her room.  I feel… heavy.  And there are warm hands in mine.

Y/N’s leaning over me, her cheek right by mine, and when I look at her she only moves an inch or two.

“Hey Sam,” she says and hiccups a shaky inhale.  “Hey, s’good to see you.”

“Oh Jesus fuck.” Dean’s slumps, squeezing my shoulder and hand.  I can only see his head and back while he’s kneeling next to me, curled over in relief.  He sits up as he says, “Fucking hell man, we thought you were gone.”

“You tho-” Oh Christ, that hurts!

“Drink something.”  Y/N has a straw ready and Dean pulls me forward to prop me up with another pillow.  “It’s been a whole day, you’ve gotta be parched.”

A whole- “Since… when?” I can talk if I make it real quiet, keep the words small in my mouth.  Damn my lips and tongue feel like someone did them with a lawn mower.

“You did the full three days.  We tried two cures and after the second, after you broke out of the dreamroot-” She pauses, a flicker of searching for something in me.  “You freaked out, hit your head against the damn wall and you’ve been out cold.”

Dean looks wrecked, watching me for signs of anything.  Y/N keeps talking. “We figured you had come out of the spell, because your breathing changed right around the expiry time but-” Her hand squeezes mine.  It feels normal.  “You wouldn’t wake up.”

“Scared the shit out of us,” sighs Dean.  He lets go of my shoulder, saying “How d’you feel? You okay?”

I nod my great big head, shift and pull my legs a bit.  I’m a heavy, body-shaped cloud of thoughts and cells.  There’s input, I’m getting evidence, I have presence.  And it’s a bit anticlimactic.

“You need anything?” he asks, before releasing my hand and brushing up and down his thighs.

“No.”

“Did something happen?”

“Hmm?”

“You got that left-the-iron-on look,” he says, “like you did something, or something happened.”

“Mmm,” I shake my head.  “Just dreams.”

“Good dreams?” he checks, waiting for my answer.  Not a hint of sleaze.

“Yeah!” I nod, deeply, because it’s the honest truth.  “Since the uh, cure, good dreams.”

Y/N relaxes then.  She nods at the news and Dean seems to ease off too.  “Alright.  Well, Young Jesus, what first; bath or burger? Sorry, dumb question, burger first. _Then_ nice hot bath, and I’ll come help with that if you need.  Or do you feel alright to move?”

Yeah, I guess Dean helping with that would be more sensible.  But considering how unremarkable everything feels… I sit up to test it out, lean my elbows on my knees… I’m stiff, but I’m pretty much as I ever was.  “No I should be-” My fuckin lips though.  I really wished them better while I was out.  “I can do it.  Thanks man.”

Dean pats my back and gets up for the kitchen. Y/N waits on my left, sitting on her feet so we’re nearly shoulder to shoulder.

“Are you okay?” she asks quietly.  “Do you want me to do anything?”

She still has a tense hold on my hand, like she’s ready to take my weight.  I don’t know which thing to say first.  “Y/N, I am _so sorry,_ about not believing it was you! You were-”

“No, don’t apologise for that,” she says firmly.  “Extraordinary circumstances, Sam.  No apologies.”

She looks so determined, so beautiful, even while exhausted, or maybe because of it.  My memory didn’t do her justice.

I swallow, and take a second because, before we go on, I just- “Did you really kiss me?” It’s a memory but there’s not a lot of it to keep in my mind - just knowledge, and not much else.  It feels like it happened in another place.

“Yeah I did Sam,” she sighs, wrapping her hand around my upper arm, and I slip my hold up hers too.

Then she starts to tell me the facts and I watch her earnest words, kind and compassionate. “I kissed you in the bathroom and then that night.  We were here, on the mattress.  And you said you wanted to kiss me back after this.” She smiles hopefully and, as though saying it aloud makes it truer for her too, she tells me more.  “I pushed you in the wheelchair, and you pushed the wheelchair.  Sometimes you pushed too hard, and then almost pushed yourself over… And there were these great big chunks of time where I read - I literally read aloud to you, because I couldn’t bear you not being able to hear me.”  She takes a breath, reflecting.  “I let that go after a while, especially when you would talk right over the top of me… I fed you smoothies.  And, like, I know _sort of_ what you usually put in them, but it might’ve been a little uh, _broad_ with the recipe.” I raise my eyebrows at that.  

“Used up all the kale,” she confesses, “and a few other things.”  

What? Why is she putting kale-? 

_“I don’t know!”_ she whines, then strokes my shoulder. “You’re a very nice trash compactor anyway.   _Anyway._  We played guessing games, which you _rock_ at, and I gave you a massage. And… I just tried to keep a hand on you as much as possible.”

I think of all the sensations I had from those times - the feeling of tipping over, the helmet and the food, trying to hold stuff and navigate, trying to visualise.

She tucks my hair behind my hair, arranges it a little as she goes on, sadder than before. “You bit yourself when you talked.  And I had to close your eyes for you sometimes, when you slept.  You got angry out of the blue.  Or not, really.  You mumbled to yourself, and laughed sometimes, out of nowhere.  That was hard to watch but also kinda comforting.” She tells me these things so that I know my own history I suppose, and she does it simply, trying to hide how it hurt her.  “You had a nightmare I couldn’t stop, and then when I saw you I couldn’t think of what to say to convince you it was me. I couldn’t-” She looks around for the thing she wanted in the dream, showing me an echo of the fallout in her shimmering eyes and buckling lips. I imagine the panic and worry, her frustration at herself, at something that was meant to comfort me doing the exact opposite.  “I should’ve prepared something! Something you didn’t know I knew, a surprise, to help convince you it was me.  I was in such a rush to be with you.  I’m sorry I couldn’t-”

“Hey what happens un’er dreamroot, stays un’er jreamroot,” I say, building the words as best I can.  My injured mouth is feeling worse the more I talk, but I’m not waiting to say this stuff.  “No apologies.”  

She smiles, conceding, and nods when I squeeze her arm.

“You did eff’rything, Y/N.” I can’t kiss her, but I do brush my fingers over the bruise on her cheekbone, pressing my palm to her jaw, asking her to lean my way and put her temple to mine.  “I don’ know how, or if I can effer really thank you for that.”

“No need, Sam.”

When I look at her now, it’s easy.  Nothing tricks me, no shadow or width makes me check what I see, my depth perception is undetectable.  She’s flawed, and dirty, and perfect.  “You were so patien’.” She shrugs as I say it. “An’ I’m sorry for hi’ing you.”

“I was more worried about your nightmare,” she whispers, “especially when you mentioned Lucifer.  I couldn’t figure out how to protect you from that.”

The nightmare has almost slipped out of my memory already, some of the dreamroot parts too.  “I jreamed of much nicer things since then.  Way nicer, ‘causa you.”

“Yeah?”  She smiles shyly, a little coy.  “Like what?”

Oh, you know, only that you _immediately_ gave me a very intimate bath, just fulfilled a few sex fantasies…  “It was just… a fery selfish jream.”

Y/N’s smile broadens and she nudges me some.  “Was I wearing a costume?”

Oh my god.  “ _No_.”

“Was I _exhausted?”_

What?!  What sort of a question is that?  I’m not… God.  Nosey much.   _Mm!_ Grinning doesn’t go with sore lips.

“Aaahahaha!  I passed out didn’t I?!”

Jesus, I can feel my skin now!  I had no idea she’d be this cheeky about… _this_.  “Nu-uh,” - still can’t resist taking the bait - “I’m my dreams you’re _insatiable_.”

“ _Oh!_ Well, you won’t have that problem here.”  Really?  “I’ve no doubt you can sate me.”

 _Oh-ho really?_  I lower my leg and lead her across my lap, let her sit on my right thigh so I can cradle her in my arms.  She looks right into me while she settles herself. I had no idea my eyes could feel so much. “…It did gif’ me a lot of ideas for _trying_ to say thank you.”

Her arms slide around my shoulders, and she’s warm and slept in and smiling a new smile.  “Well, you don’t _need_ to say thank you, but if you want to,” she shrugs again, running her fingertips over my eyebrow and cheek as she talks, “I’ll find a way to cope.”

I pull her close and she leans over, letting me hide my face in her neck - my happy place.

The feelings are so simple and common - the brush of skin on skin, humid breath in closed spaces, hair that shifts and tickles, and the smells are deep, amazing…  it’s still new, but it’s not overwhelming.  That’s what was wrong in that construct - everything was one-at-a-time, singular.  Here, it’s a whole suite of things, in my arms and on my skin.  And it’s where she is, where I have her, but it’s not really where I feel her.

I feel her where I know her, in my muscles, in my skipping heart that was truly there when she first kissed me, when she gave me warmth with her body, and helped me feel real and present and alive.  I feel her inside, where she looked after me, and in my mind where she met me when she thought I needed her, to comfort me.  I don’t know how this feeling isn’t love.

“Y/N.”  I lift my head and she leans back to look at me.  It’s so damn sweet to have her hands around my face, holding and stroking.  “All you di’ for me, ou’ here, and in my jream, i’ means so much. I wish I coul’ exp’ain-”

“It means exactly as much as it should.  It was a privilege to be with you in there, and easy to care for you out here…  It was like we got to be old together, for a little while.”

That’s- those _words_.  It makes my heart thump hard just thinking about- it’s like a totally different life flashed before her eyes and I didn’t get to see it.  But I felt it.  I felt this. “Bu’ still-”

“I don’t think you understand.”  She cups my jaw and kisses my cheek, her words going straight into my mind and everything connected to it.  “I’m falling for you, Sam, and I’m looking forward to it.  It’s going to be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.  I can feel it.”


End file.
